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LITERARY REMAINS. 



OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS 



DELINEATED AND ILLUSTRATED. 



By Eev. JAMES FLOY, D.D. 



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PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

200 MULBERRY-STREET, 

1866. 
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 

CARLTON & PORTER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United Spates for the 
Southern District of New York. 



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INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



By those who have been privileged to sit under 
the ministry of the author of the following pages, 
their contents will be readily recognized. At various 
times during his ministry, Dr. Floy made the delin- 
eation and illustration of some of the principal char- 
acters of the Old Testament the matter of his pulpit 
exercises. After his decease, these discourses were 
found written out in full, so that the work of the 
editor has. been comparatively an easy one, and the 
reader has before him the same matter, only slightly 
modified in form, that was delivered from the pulpit. 

Two things will especially attract the attention of 
the appreciative readers of these chapters. First, the 
absence of any attempt to so fashion the sacred story 
as to accommodate it to the demand of modern skep- 
ticism ; for the writer was eminently a believer in the 
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and in the super- 
natural character of their lessons. And secondly, 
the evangelical uses constantly made of the sacred 
narrative ; for with him the whole Bible was full of 
Christ, and all its parts perpetually manifested the 



4 INTKODUCTOKY NOTE. 

Gospel dispensation. With such convictions of mind 
and heart, the story of the patriarchs was to him also 
the manifestation of the Gospel. 

"Whatever, therefore, tends to promote the knowl- 
edge of even the historical portions of the Bible, 
and to render them attractive, should be esteemed as 
valuable means of religious instruction. And as the 
author, when delivering the substance of these chap- 
ters from the pulpit, preached Christ, so now he still 
brings from the sacred records their testimony of 
Him. In the hope that these pages may subserve 
that high design, they are now given to the public. 



CONTENTS. 



PACfB 

MOSES T 

I. Introductory 7 

II. In Median. 24 

III. His Commission 4.0 

IY. The Passover 51 

V. Passage of the Red Sea 70 

YI. The Manna 84 

VII. The Rock of Horeb 102 

VIII. The First Battle * 114 

IX. Sinai 124 

X. The Borders of Canaan 138 

XI. His Death 148 

BALAAM 158 

ABRAHAM 16t 

I. The Father of the Faithful 161 

II. The Trial of his Faith 180 

LOT ! 194 

The Dead Sea 194 

HAGAR AND ISHMAEL 206 

ISAAC . t , 218 









6 CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

JACOB 230 

I. His Earlier Life. 230 

II. The Change of his Name 24.5 

HI. Conclusion of his History 259 

JOSEPH 2*2. 

I. His Early Life 212 

II. Conclusion of his History 281 

DEBORAH 300 

JOB 314 

I. Preliminary Observations 314 

II. His Trials and Patience 321 

in. Conclusion of his History 342 



OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



MOSES. 

CHAPTEE I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

A few words with reference to the laud of 
Egypt. It was first settled after the deluge by Miz- 
raiin, the son of Ham. He is supposed to be the 
same with Menes, who is recorded in Egyptian his- 
tory as their first king. From that descendant of 
Noah by whom it was first settled it is called the 
land of Mizraim, and by the Psalmist David, the 
land of Ham. It is and always has been by far the 
most interesting portion of Africa. Malte Brun calls 
it the connecting link between Africa and the civil- 
ized world. It is one vast valley in three divisions, 
called upper, middle, and lower Egypt, watered by 
the Nile, the largest river in the old world, and sur- 
rounded by barren deserts. Its history, from the 
earliest times to the present day, is full of romantic 
incidents. At the time to which this introductory 
chapter refers, Egypt was by far the most enlightened 
nation on the globe. The arts and sciences flourished 
there. She was independent and prosperous. She 
held a proud pre-eminence in agriculture, architect- 



8 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

ure, painting, and sculpture. By Cambyses, king 
of Persia, Egypt was invaded and conquered. For 
nearly two hundred years she wore the shackles of 
the Persian. Then came the Greeks, under Alexan- 
der, and Egypt changed her master. For three cen- 
turies, under the reign of the Ptolemies, her cities and 
towns were in fact mere Grecian provinces : flourish- 
ing, indeed, and prosperous, but still wearing the 
yoke of the conqueror. By Augustus Cesar Egypt 
was united to the Roman empire, of which it re- 
mained a part for six hundred and sixty-six years, 
when it was again conquered and fell into the hands 
of the followers of Mohammed. " About the year 
887," I quote now from Malte Brun, " the power of 
the califs was succeeded by the reign of the Turco- 
mans, their own janissaries whom they had called 
to their aid. The Mamelukes, or military slaves, of 
the Turcoman sultans of Egypt, then massacred 
their masters and took possession of the sovereignty." 
The Turkish dynasty reigned till 1382. In 1798 the 
French, under Bonaparte, abolished the Mameluke 
aristocracy, and made themselves masters of the 
whole of Egypt. They retained the mastery, how- 
ever, but three years, and in 1801 evacuated the 
country, which is now governed by a nominally inde- 
pendent pasha, between whom and the Mamelukes 
on the one hand, and the Turks on the other, there 
has been almost uninterrupted contention and blood- 
shed. In all its history how signally have been ful- 
filled the predictions of the prophets, uttered at a 
time when Egypt was in the zenith of her glory. " It 
shall be," says Ezekiel, "the basest of kingdoms; 



MOSES. 9 

neither shall it exalt itself any more among the 
nations. The pride of her power shall come down ; 
I will make the land of Egypt desolate, and the 
country shall be desolate of that whereof it was full. 
I will sell the land into the hand of the wicked. I 
will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by 
the hand of strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. And 
there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt. 
The scepter of Egypt shall depart away." After the 
lapse of two thousand four hundred years from the date 
of this prophecy an eye-witness of the facts thus de- 
scribes the self-same spot. " In Egypt," says he, " there 
is no middle class, neither nobility, clergy, merchants, 
landholders. A universal air of misery, manifest in 
all the traveler meets, points out to him the rapacity 
of oppression and the distrust attendant upon slavery. 
The profound ignorance of the inhabitants equally 
prevents them from perceiving the causes of their 
evils, or applying the necessary remedies. Igno- 
rance, diffused through every class, extends its effects 
to every species of moral and physical knowledge. 
Nothing is talked of but intestine troubles, the pub- 
lic misery, pecuniary extortions, bastinadoes, and 
murders." Other travelers describe the most execra- 
ble vices as common, and represent the morals of the 
people as deplorably corrupt. As a token of the 
desolation of the country, mud-walled cottages are 
now the only habitations where the ruins of temples 
and palaces abound. Egypt is surrounded by the 
dominions of the Turks and the Arabs, and the 
prophecy is literally true which marked it in the 
midst of desolation. " They shall be desolate in the 



10 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

midst of the countries that are desolate, and her 
cities shall be in the midst of cities that are wasted." 
But our present business is rather with Egypt as she 
was three thousand years ago, and with the physical 
character of the country, the manners and customs of 
the people in that early age. Egypt, as I have said, 
is a valley watered by the Nile, and bounded " on the 
right and left by a barren expanse of deserts." It is 
a country in which rain seldom falls, and which de- 
pends for the fertility of its soil upon the annual 
overflow of this great river. It commences rising 
with the summer solstice, attains its greatest height 
at the autumnal equinox, remains stationary for a 
few days, and then gradually recedes within its 
banks. The frequent dearths of which we read, some- 
times amounting to absolute famines, are attributed 
to the failure of the usual overflow of the waters of 
the Nile ; and it is said that too little or too great an 
overflow is equally injurious. 

The annual rise of the Nile occurs with so great 
regularity, and so fertilizing are its waters and the 
deposit left behind them, that Egypt may justly be 
considered as the most productive country in the 
world. In all ages it has been the granary of the 
East, and on other occasions besides that referred to 
in the history of Joseph it has been the means of 
saving neighboring nations from the horrors of 
famine. By the natives the river has been and still 
is regarded with superstitious reverence, and divine 
honors are paid to it. Its source was unknown, the 
cause of its annual overflow a perfect mystery ; and 
as it was the cause of their luxury and wealth, they 



MOSES. 11 

looked upon the river with idolatrous awe. Without 
the Nile their whole country had been a sterile des- 
ert ; with it it was a goodly heritage, the envy of 
the East. The mystery which for ages enveloped 
the questions as to the source of this wonderful river, 
and the reason of its periodical overflow, has been dis- 
sipated by the researches of modern travelers, and 
especially by the intrepid and indefatigable Bruce. 
"It is now known that the sources or permanent 
springs of the Nile are situated in the mountains of 
Abyssinia and the unexplored regions to the west and 
south-west of that country ; and that the causes of the 
inundation are the periodical rains which fall in those 
districts." On the eastern side of the most easterly 
branch of the Nile was a region of country called 
Goshen, from an Arabic word signifying " choice " or 
" precious," from the fact that " it was the most fertile 
pasture ground in the whole of lower Egypt." This 
was the district assigned by Joseph, with the consent 
of the king, to his brethren and their families. There 
they lived, and toiled, and prospered. The promised 
blessing of the Almighty was upon the descendants of 
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. They increased in 
numbers also in a most surprising manner ; at a rate, 
indeed, incredible but for the continued blessing of 
the Almighty, and it seems little less than miraculous 
that in the short space of two hundred and fifteen 
years they had multiplied from seventy who went 
down into Egypt with Jacob, to upward of six hund- 
red thousand. Such, however, is the statement of 
the sacred writer, and herein we begin to see the first 
literal fulfillment of the promise to Abraham when 



12 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

the Almighty directed him to look upon the stars of 
heaven and said unto him, " So shall thy seed be." 
They increased abundantly, and multiplied, and 
waxed exceeding mighty ; and the land, that is, the 
land of Goshen, was filled with them. 

The Pharaoh who now occupied the throne of 
Egypt, for it must be remembered that each suc- 
cessive king assumed the name Pharaoh, with his 
officers of state, began to look with envy upon the 
prosperity of the Hebrews. They became jealous of 
their growing greatness, and fearful, perhaps, that so 
powerful a body, occupying their most open and ac- 
cessible frontier, might give access to some foreign 
invader, or unite with their enemies and make them- 
selves masters of Egypt. " Come on," says he, " let 
us deal wisely with them." Wisely ! a strange word 
by which to express a system of the most oppressive 
tyranny and cruel craftiness. The measures of the 
king seemed, indeed, well calculated to effect the 
desired object, and for a season promised success; but 
the issue showed that the king's wisdom was most 
perfect folly. But for that step, that bloody and 
short-sighted policy, Egypt might have continued to 
prosper, and the maledictions of the prophets, so fear- 
fully fulfilled, had not been uttered. 

Pharaoh's first step was to deprive the dwellers in 
Goshen of civil liberty. With his armed hosts he 
reduced them to a state of bondage, and instead of 
permitting them to toil as they had been wont for their 
own benefit in the fertile fields assigned them by his 
predecessor, he placed over them task-masters, in 
plainer English, drivers, each with a little gang of 



MOSES. 13 

the descendants of Abraham, who were compelled to 
toil at a master's bidding, and to derive for themselves 
no benefit from their toil. They made their lives 
bitter, says the historian, with hard bondage, in mor- 
tar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the 
field ; all their service, wherein they made them serve, 
was with rigor. They appear to have been mainly 
employed on great public works. They built (says 
Moses) treasure cities for Pharaoh; and Josephus 
says [in which statement he is in the main corrobo- 
rated by Philo] the oppressed and degraded Israelites 
were employed to cut a great number of channels by 
which to lead the waters of the Nile through vast 
districts of country. They were compelled to build 
walls for their masters' cities, to erect moijp.ds and 
ramparts to restrain the overflowings of the river, 
and to their hands Josephus attributes the rearing of 
those stupendous monuments upon which successive 
ages have gazed with wonder, the pyramids of Egypt. 
The authority of Josephus is not, however, in all 
cases, worthy of implicit reliance, and it has been 
questioned whether he speaks the truth in attributing 
to his ancestors the building of these wonders of the 
world, that appear destined to endure to the end of 
time. One thing is clear — the pyramids are there. 
If not reared by Pharaoh's bondmen we know not 
by whom they were erected ; and if their history be 
not found in the writings of Moses it is to be found 
nowhere. " But tyranny," says Milman, " shortsight- 
ed as inhuman, failed in its purpose. Even under 
these unfavorable circumstances the strangers still 
increased. In the damp stone quarry, in the lime-pit 



14 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

and brick field, toiling beneath burdens under a 
parching sun, they multiplied as rapidly as among 
the fresh airs and under the cool tents of Goshen ; 
and now, instead of a separate tribe inhabiting a re- 
mote province, where loyalty was only suspected, the 
government found a still more numerous people 
spread throughout the country, and rendered hostile 
by cruel oppression. Tyranny having thus wantonly 
made enemies, must resort to more barbarous meas- 
ures to repress them." A decree is issued that every 
Hebrew male child shall be destroyed at its birth. 
Those from whom this bloody service was exacted 
evaded compliance, " and the king has now no alter- 
native but to take into his own hands the execution 
of his exterminating project, which, if carried into 
effect, would have cut short at once the race of Abra- 
ham." Pharaoh's decree is, that every male child 
shall at his birth be cast into the river : an offering 
at once to his imaginary god — for, as we have seen, 
the Egyptians worshiped the Nile — and a sure means 
of exterminating a hated race. 

There is a tradition among the Jews that Pharaoh's 
cruelty in this matter was owing to a dream he had, 
in which he saw a balance, in one scale of which was 
the whole land of Egypt, in the other a lamb. 
Strangely the lamb outweighed the land of Egypt. 
The interpretation given to the dream by the magi- 
cians was, that a child was shortly to be born among 
the Hebrews who should destroy the whole of Egypt. 
"Whether this was so or not, the decree went forth. 
How long it remained in force, or how many little 
ones thus perished, we have no means of ascertaining. 



MOSES. 15 

It is, however, to these dark days, this era of oppres- 
sion and cruelty, that the subject of our writing refers, 
and there, three thousand four hundred and thirty- 
two years ago, by the bank of that mysterious river, 
with slow step and with a sad countenance, the index 
of a heavy heart, appears a wretched woman. As 
indicated by her dress, she is in the servile class 
of society. She belongs to a hated race. Her's is 
not only a life of toil, but of bondage. That woman 
is a slave, but she is a wife and a mother. Her hus- 
band's name is Amram, her own Jochebed. They are 
both Israelites, and both belong to the tribe of Levi. 
One son, a lad about three years of age, she has left 
at home, and a daughter between ten and twelve is 
with her. The mother carries a strangely constructed 
basket, made of Egyptian reeds, which her own hands 
have daubed with slime and pitch, and thus rendered 
waterproof. Within that basket, that ark of bul- 
rushes, as it is called, she has placed her third child, 
an infant of three months. And now, having reached 
the brink of the river, she places the little basket with 
its helpless inmate among the flags that grow by the 
water side. Having done this, and directed her 
daughter to conceal herself and watch the result, she 
returned homeward. Strange conduct for a mother, 
and yet in her peculiar circumstances excusable, and 
as the issue proved, beyond question the best thing 
she could have done. Possibly she was led to this 
course by the guidance of God's spirit ; at any rate, 
the eye of the Almighty was upon this wretched 
mother and her helpless babe. In that ark of bul- 
rushes by the river's brink, exposed to the deceitful 



16 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

winds and to the rapacity of fearful reptiles, was tlie 
future leader of God's chosen people. In the presence 
of that exposed and forsaken child the mighty mon- 
arch shall one day tremble ; at the motion of that lit- 
tle one's finger strange wonders shall be performed, 
and by his agency the merciless oppressor with his 
armed hosts shall feel the terrible vengeance of Je- 
hovah. That little boy, now in the third month of 
his existence, is not destined to perish in the waters 
of the Nile, nor to be devoured by the hungry croco- 
dile upon its banks. He has as yet no name, but one 
is to be given him that shall be enshrined in the hearts 
of successive generations until the end of time : a name 
that shall never die, a name eternally joined with that 
of the world's Redeemer in the anthems of the blessed. 
" There," says the Revelator, " there they sing the song 
of Moses and the Lamb." The child's sister, the little 
girl ten or twelve years old, to whom I have referred — 
her name was Miriam — stood a while at a short dis- 
tance, intently gazing upon the cradle which held her 
infant brother. Presently her attention was directed 
to a party of ladies walking directly toward the spot 
where the child was. Miriam, I doubt not, trembled 
for the result, as she recognized the daughter of the 
tyrant by whose cruel edict her mother had been in- 
duced thus strangely to jeopard the life of her little 
brother. It was indeed the king's daughter, attended 
bv her maids. She had come down to wash, or bathe 
in the river ; and soon her eye caught the ark among 
the flags, and by her direction it was brought to her. 
Immediately she caused it to be opened, and the little 
innocent looked up into her face and wept. She was 



MOSES. 17 

struck with the beauty of the child, and his tears ap- 
pealed with irresistible eloquence to her heart. How 
simple, and how true to nature, is the language of the 
sacred writer : " When she had opened it, she saw the 
child, and behold, the babe wept." A writer of fic- 
tion would haye dwelt upon this picture, upon the 
tears of this innocent child, and upon the irresistible 
eloquence with which those tears found their way to 
the true woman's heart of the king's daughter. He 
does not dwell upon it, but simply stating the fact, 
adds : " It is," said she, " one of the Hebrews' chil- 
dren " — one doomed by her father's decree to death. 
He belongs to a hated race, and if she had left him 
there to perish, the act had been nothing more than 
might have been expected from the education and 
sentiments natural to the daughter of a tyrant. But 
she had compassion on him ; she resolved to save his 
life. And now the little Miriam, with unwonted 
boldness, and with a forethought beyond her years, 
ventures to approach the royal maiden. I know not 
how she introduced herself, or how she mustered suf- 
ficient courage to address one so far above her in 
birth and rank; she, the child of a despised bond- 
woman, in the presence of the king's daughter. Mir- 
iam appears Carefully to have concealed the fact that 
the child was her brother, or that she had any knowl- 
edge of him, and learning that it was the royal lady's 
intention to adopt the child as her own, she modestly 
asks, " Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the He- 
brew women that she may nurse the child for thee ?" 
The suggestion was favorably received, and Miriam, 
knowing right well where to find the most suitable 



18 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

nurse, ran with a full heart to her mother, hastily 
related the circumstances, and introduced her to the 
king's daughter. "Take," said she, "take this child 
and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." 
She needed no repetition of the command, nor stop- 
ped to stipulate for the amount of recompense. She 
clasped her darling boy once again to her bosom, and 
rejoiced that by her stratagem the lad's life was saved. 
It mattered not to her that he was called the son of 
the king's 'daughter; she had him in her own posses- 
sion; she watched over him during the years of his 
infancy ; he associated with his sister Miriam and his 
elder brother, Aaron ; and as his faculties expanded, 
from them he learned the strange history of his expo- 
sure upon the banks of the Nile, and in all his after 
life ; he never forgot nor despised his humble origin, 
nor the lessons taught him in the humble hut of his 
parents. The king's daughter claimed also the right 
to give the child a name. She called him Moses, 
because, she said, " I drew him out of the water." 
Whether any name, and if any, what, had been pre- 
viously given him by his parents, we know not. He 
was ever after known by the simple designation com- 
memorating his rescue from the waters of the Nile. 
An Israelite with an Egyptian name, when the years 
of his infancy were ended, he was transferred from 
the hovel to the palace, and was known and recog- 
nized as the son of the king's daughter. 

What strange infatuation was that which induced 
the tyrant king to allow his daughter to adopt this 
Hebrew child ! Had he forgotten the dream about 
the lamb in one scale and the land of Egypt in the 



MOSES. 19 

other? Possibly he had, or at any rate it did not 
occur to him that this little child was the lamb ; that 
he himself was about to be at the expense of rearing 
and educating the deliverer of the Israelitish bond- 
men. I suppose he thought it was a mere whim of 
his daughter, which it could do no harm to gratify, 
and so he allowed the little fellow to be brought into 
the palace, where, in the pomp and splendor of roy- 
alty, he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyp- 
tians, and became, as Stephen tells us, "mighty in 
words and deeds." There we leave him. By birth a 
slave, by adoption the son of the king's daughter; 
a crown in prospect, the mightiest monarchy upon the 
face of the earth apparently within his reach. His 
future history, full of interesting incidents, will be 
developed in these pages. At present let us re- 
flect upon the apparently trivial circumstances by 
which an all-wise Providence brings about the most 
wonderful results. In the history of this little child 
thus far there has been nothing miraculous, nothing 
out of the ordinary course, and yet how different 
might have been the issue had any one link in the 
chain been wanting, or different from what it was. 
Had his mother made his ark of bulrushes a day 
sooner or a day later ; had she gone with it to some 
other part of the river ; had the little Miriam not 
been left there to watch the result, or had she acted 
otherwise than she did ; had the wind or the tide been 
different when the slave mother left her little one 
upon the water ; or, finally, had the fancy or caprice 
of the king's daughter induced her to seek some other 
part of the river for her ablutions, or to hasten or re- 



20 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

tard her visit, it is altogether likely that the child had 
perished there with others of his race who found 
no deliverers. "Were all these things the result of 
chance ? Far from it. Thus to attribute them is to 
run into blank atheism, for chance is nothing and 
can affect nothing. The infinitely wise God con- 
trolled all these events, even those which appear to 
us the most trivial ; while he left the actors in them, 
the child's mother and sister and the daughter of 
King Pharaoh, perfectly free agents. And then, 
again, how strange the conduct of the Egyptian 
king, a remorseless tyrant, full of hatred to the 
whole Hebrew race, and bent upon their total exter- 
mination ; how strange that he should have permitted 
his own daughter to adopt and cherish and educate 
this son of the bondwoman. It had been less to be 
wondered at if he had spurned his daughter from his 
presence when she made known her wish ; or if, with 
his own bloody hand, he had quenched the hope of 
Israel by putting the child to death. He, too, was a 
free agent, and contributed to bring about the designs 
of the great Ruler of the universe by extending to 
the little one the protecting care of royalty. 

The statement of the apostle in his epistle to the 
Hebrews confirms the sentiment that all these mat- 
ters, from the birth of Moses to his adoption into the 
palace of the Pharaohs were under His supreme con- 
trol, and at the same time reveals the motives by 
which the parents of the child were actuated. He tells 
us that it was " by faith, Moses, when he was born was 
hid three months of his parents, and they were not 
afraid of the king's commandment." This language 



MOSES. 21 

implies not only that the father and the mother were 
believers in the God of Abraham, but that unto them 
some special promise had been made with reference 
to the child ; faith, by which they acted always, im- 
plying some antecedent assurance on which to rest. 
What that specific promise was, in their case, we 
know not ; whether, as stated by the Jewish anti- 
quarian, God revealed unto them his designs in a 
vision by night, or made known his gracious pur- 
poses in some other way. What we do know is, they 
acted by faith. By faith they kept the child con- 
cealed during the first three months of his existence ; 
faith directed the hands of the mother when she 
made her little cradle and lined it so carefully within 
and without with pitch ; faith sustained her when 
with Miriam she left at home her husband and her 
elder son on her mournful errand ; faith sustained 
her faltering steps as she moved slowly to the water's 
edge ; faith nerved her sinking spirit as she gave the 
child a farewell kiss on the river's brink. Nor was 
it a dead or merely speculative faith. On the con- 
trary, the conduct of the parents of this child shows, 
in a clear light, how believers in the word of God 
may look for and expect the fulfillment of his prom- 
ises. Whatever that promise may have been in the 
case of the child Moses, his parents did not sit down 
in sluggish inactivity or careless indifference. With 
watchful solicitude they concealed him three months 
from the emissaries of the cruel king, and then, 
when it became necessary to expose him upon the 
waters of the Nile, they fell not into the fallacious 
argument that if God intended to save the life of the 



22 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

child he could do it without their co-operation. On 
the contrary, the ark of bulrushes was prepared, and 
to the best of their ability made secure ; and the little 
Miriam w^as left to watch the result. When the 
child's mother had done her part, then, and not till 
then, had she a right to cast her care upon the Lord. 
So in all cases. Does the revealed will of God 
assure us that the earth is to be filled with his glory ! 
It does so ; and in connection with the assurance is 
the duty devolving upon Churches, and upon individ- 
ual Christians, to let their light shine, to be diligent, 
to work while the day lasts, and unobliterated upon 
the sacred page still stands the bitter curse de- 
nounced against those who came not to the help of 
the Lord against the mighty. In the grand result 
God has taken man into copartnership with himself; 
we are laborers together with God. So with every 
promise, so with our own personal salvation ; it is 
ours to work as if everything depended upon our 
own unaided efforts, and then to cast our whole care 
on Him who careth for us, to work out our own sal- 
vation with fear and trembling, for it is God that 
worketh in us to will and to do of his own good 
pleasure. 

We know not how the wretched woman spent the 
interval between the kiss she gave her boy as she left 
him upon the banks of the river and the return of 
Miriam. Her fears would doubtless conjure up many 
frightful scenes as the result of what she had done. 
That the babe's life would somehow be preserved, was 
probably the most she dared to hope ; and so far as 
man could see, there was little reason to hope for even 



MOSES. 23 

that. Imagination itself could hardly have pictured 
the reality, the hurried return of her daughter, the start- 
ling announcement that the princess had resolved to 
adopt the child, and that Miriam was sent to seek a 
nurse for him. She hurries to the spot, and listens 
with an overpowering joy to the language of the 
king's daughter, calling for some one to receive and 
nurse the little foundling. 



24: OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTEE II. 

IN MIDIAN. 

We left our subject in the palace of the Pharaohs. 
The adopted son of the king's daughter, and, as has 
been supposed, the heir apparent to the throne of 
Egypt, he was educated in all the wisdom of the 
most enlightened nation of the earth. His was a life 
of luxury and ease in the midst of the pomp and 
pageantry of royalty. It is said too by Josephus and 
Jewish historians that Moses was made a general of the 
Egyptian army, which he led successfully against the 
Ethiopians, routed them, and gained a great victory. 
I see no reason to doubt this statement. It is true 
he does not mention it himself, as it has no connec- 
tion with the history which he writes, but is in exact 
accordance with what Stephen says of him, that he 
was a man mighty in words and in deeds. Thus 
situated, prosperous and successful, flattered and 
caressed, with troops of friends and obsequious fol- 
lowers, it had not been strange if in these circum- 
stances he had utterly forgotten the lowliness of 
his origin. His parents belonged to a despised 
race. His father and mother, his brother and sis- 
ter, were slaves. There was apparently no hope of 
their redemption from bondage. Why should Moses 
care for them ? He had no lack of society. He 
associated with the refined, the wealthy, and the 
learned. Why link himself to a fettered race ? 



MOSES. 25 

"Why not blot forever from his memory the rock 
whence he was hewn, and the hole of the pit whence 
he was digged ? He might have done so. Many in 
his circumstances would have done it. And if he 
had, deliverance to the oppressed would have come 
from another quarter ; and the name of Moses, like 
that of the king's daughter who adopted him, would 
have utterly perished. But Moses was actuated by a 
different spirit. He remembered the hut of his 
parents. He was not ashamed of the bondwoman 
who gave him birth. His heart yearned toward his 
sister Miriam and his brother Aaron. They who 
toiled under the burning sun, exposed to insult and 
wrong, were his people ; and to the astonishment of 
the royal court, and doubtless of the Hebrews them- 
selves, he announced one day that he would no 
longer be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He 
chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of 
God, and as the apostle tells us, " he esteemed the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures 
of Egypt." But what did Moses know about Christ ? 
It is true, this happened fifteen hundred years before 
the advent of Christ into our world ; and yet we read 
the Bible to very little purpose unless we keep in 
mind the great fact that in the Old Testament as well 
as in the New the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus 
is held up as the prominent glory of its pages. Faith 
in the promise of a Messiah yet to come was the 
foundation of the religion of the patriarchs and the 
ancient people of God, just as faith in a Saviour 
crucified was the glory of the apostle, and is the only 
hope of his people at the present day. Then too, as 



26 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

now, and as there has been ever since, there was a 
reproach connected with a profession of faith in 
Christ. It is his own caution to his followers : 
" Marvel not if the world hate you.'' 1 

The first recorded act of Moses after this decision 
was one of vengeance. He saw an Egyptian smiting 
one of his brethren, and he slew the oppressor. This 
Egyptian was probably one of the taskmasters or 
drivers who were placed over the Hebrew bondmen. 
What was the precise nature of the wrong done to 
the slave we know not, nor by what authority Moses 
wreaked such sudden vengeance upon the oppressor. 
It has been supposed that the Egyptian slew the 
Israelite, and that Moses was justified in putting the 
murderer to death by the precept given by God to 
Noah : " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall 
his blood be shed." This, however, is but a suppo- 
sition, and I think scarcely authorized by the narra- 
tive. It seems that in this matter Moses acted with 
unwarranted rashness. He had, indeed, already been 
designated and received his commission as the de- 
liverer of his people, but the time for that deliverance 
had not yet come. " He supposed," says Stephen, 
in giving an account of the affair in the seventh 
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, " he supposed his 
brethren would have understood how that God, by 
his hand, would deliver them, but they understood 
not." They looked for no deliverance : least of all 
did they expect it at the hands of him who, although 
one of their own race, had spent all his life in the 
palace of their oppressor. The body of the murdered 
Egyptian Moses carefully buried in the sand ; and 



MOSES. 27 

the next day, when lie saw two of the Hebrews striv- 
ing with each other, he said to him that did the 
wrong, " Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow % " He 
sought to reconcile them to each other, to act the 
part of a peacemaker. He reminded them, perhaps, 
that they were brethren, partakers of the same bitter 
cup, and sharers of the same bondage. But his efforts 
were vain. He that did his neighbor wrong rudely 
repulsed him, thrust him away, saying, " Who made 
thee a ruler and a judge over us ? Wilt thou kill me 
as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?" Strange 
conduct! As if their sufferings from their task- 
masters were not enough, they quarrel among them- 
selves ; and their conduct toward Moses, who had, for 
them, forsaken the royal palace, refusing to be called 
the son of Pharaoh's daughter, resembles that of the 
men of whom it is said that when a greater than 
Moses came to his own his oWn received him not. 
" Wilt thou kill me as thou didst the Egyptian yes- 
terday ? And Moses was afraid, and said, Surely 
this thing was known." And it was known. King 
Pharaoh had heard of it, and he sought to put the rene- 
gade — that Moses who had turned his back upon the 
court — to death. He had slain an Egyptian, and by 
the Egyptian law he deserved to die. Truly, a most 
inauspicious commencement of the great work upon 
which he had entered. He left his luxurious home 
to serve his enslaved countrymen ; he gave up ease 
and wealth and honor that he might be the means 
of breaking the oppressive yoke under which they 
labored. Thev for whom he had made these sacrifices 
spurned him from their presence ; they denounced 



28 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEKS. 

him as assuming power to which he had no right, 
"Who made thee a ruler and a judge?" and they 
caused the king to be made acquainted with the fact 
that this Moses had murdered an Egyptian, and in- 
stead of being able to effect their deliverance he is 
obliged to fly for his life. And he fled from the face 
of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, a region 
of country extending from the east of the land of 
Moab, on the east of the Dead Sea, southward along 
the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, stretching into 
Arabia. It further passed to the south of the land 
of Edom into the peninsula of Mount Sinai. There 
Moses dwelt for the long space of forty years, follow- 
ing the humble life of a shepherd. He married 
there Zipporah, the daughter of Eeuel or Raguel, 
and there was born his son to whom he gave the name 
Gershom, which means a stranger ; " For," said he, 
" I have been a stranger in a strange land." His 
second son was also born in that country. To him 
he gave the name Eliezer, which means help from 
God ; " For," said he, " the God of my father has been 
my help, and delivered me from the land of Pharaoh." 
Thus have we brought down his history to the 
eightieth year of his age, for he was forty, the apostle 
tells us, when he forsook the royal court, and forty 
years were spent in the land of Midian. And why 
this long delay ? Why these additional years of cruel 
bondage % Could not the Almighty have effected 
the deliverance of his people when Moses first re- 
nounced his alliance with the king's daughter \ Most 
assuredly, It might have been done without the aid 
of Moses at all, Nay, if it had pleased him, the 



MOSES. 29 

descendants of the patriarchs had never been called 
to drink oppression's bitter cup. 

In this matter, as everywhere else in the provi- 
dential dealings of the Almighty, we see the sover- 
eignty of that God who doeth what he will in the 
armies of heaven and among the children of men, 
and who giveth no account of his doings. And yet, 
upon a little reflection, we shall see ample reason for 
what appears to us this long delay. In the first 
place, as is very evident from their conduct, the 
Israelites were far from being prepared for freedom. 
Their treatment of Moses when he appeared among 
them, their refusal to recognize him as a leader, and 
the base treachery which betrayed him to the king, 
which branded him as a murderer, and exposed him 
to a felon's death, afford ample evidence of this fact. 

It is apparent, also, that neither was Moses quali- 
fied at this time for the great work to which he was 
called. How could he be ? His life had been one of 
ease and luxurious enjoyment ; he had no feelings in 
common with the men whose lives were one unceas- 
ing round of unrequited toil. He was hasty and im- 
petuous. He smote the Egyptian and buried him in 
the sand. He supposed, so little was his acquaintance 
with human nature, that at a word from him men 
engaged in deadly strife would be reconciled and 
made friends. 

To fit him for his great work it was necessary that 
his impetuosity should be cooled down, that he should 
know something of toil ; and the forty years he spent 
in Midian as a shepherd were as necessary a part of 
his training as the forty spent in the court of Pha- 



30 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTERS. 

raoh. In Egypt his mind was cultivated. In Midian 
his physical powers were developed. As the adopted 
son of the king's daughter, he received that educa- 
tion which qualified him to act the part of a wise legis- 
lator ; as a shepherd, the son-in-law of Raguel, the Mid- 
ianite, toiling for his daily bread, he acquired the no less 
important lessons of sympathy with his hard-working 
countrymen — fortitude, perseverance, patience. 

Then, again, God had expressly foretold the 
duration of their Egyptian bondage. Three cen- 
turies before its commencement, in a vision of the 
night, when a horror of great darkness fell upon Abra- 
ham, God said unto him, " know of a surety that thy 
seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, 
and shall serve them ; and they shall afflict them four 
hundred years." When Moses rashly commenced his 
enterprise, the fullness of time had not yet come. 
There was lacking forty years of the four hundred ; 
and utterly in vain had been any attempt, though the 
armies of the earth had been combined for the pur- 
pose, to hasten the time of their deliverance, and thus 
falsify the unerring prediction of Jehovah. It is 
written, "he that believeth shall not make haste," 
a declaration equally applicable to all the promises 
of God. He that believeth will wait patiently ; avoid- 
ing despondency on the one hand, and presumption on 
the other. Faith calmly waits the fulfillment of God's 
word. He hath said it, and it shall be so. 

" Leaves to his sovereign sway- 
To choose the fitting hour • 

Acknowledging bow wise his way 
How wonderful bis power. 



MOSES. 31 

u And far above her thought 

His sovereignty appears, 
When fully he the work hath wrought 
That caused her needless fears." 

And now the time for Israel's deliverance was at 
hand. The four hundred years were almost ended. 
Since the departure of Moses their afflictions had in- 
creased in severity. They sighed by reason of their 
bondage, and their cry came up unto God, and God 
heard their groaning, and he remembered his cove- 
nant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 
This was, according to the chronology we have fol- 
lowed, in the year from the creation 2513, B. 0. 
1491. And where now was Moses, the man selected 
and commissioned by Infinite Wisdom for this great 
work ? In the land of Midian, still following his 
humble calling, tending his flocks and herds. Pur- 
suing the even tenor of his way, all ambitious 
thoughts seem to have died within him. " The world 
forgetting, by the world forgot," his very name had 
almost passed from the memory of the Egyptian court ; 
and the early years of his life, the splendors of roy- 
alty, the gorgeous pomp of the palace, the stirring 
incidents he had there met with, served but for the 
amusement of his boys as they hung with mute won- 
der on his lips as he told them tales of Egypt in the 
long evenings when their daily tasks were done. It 
seems, too, that Moses had forgotten the great object 
for which he had renounced his alliance with the king's 
daughter. He had been commissioned to deliver the 
Israelites from the yoke of bondage. He rushed heed- 
lessly to the work. As we have seen, he was unsuc- 



32 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

cessful. Perhaps he deemed from this disastrous 
commencement that he had been mistaken ; that it 
was not the voice of God which called him. 

We come now to the circumstance which gave a 
new direction to his after life. On a certain day, 
Moses, unaccompanied, as it appears, by either of his 
sons or any other attendants, drove his flocks for pas- 
turage to an unfrequented spot. He led them, says 
the sacred narrative, to the back side of the desert, 
and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. 
It will be understood, of course, that this spot was 
not thus designated at the time referred to. It was 
afterward called the mountain of God, and has to 
the present hour many sacred associations clustering 
around it. The Sea of Edom, or the Red Sea, termi- 
nates in two narrow gulfs, the western running up to 
the modern Isthmus of Suez, the eastern extending 
not quite so far to the north. In the mountainous 
district between these two forks of the sea stands a 
remarkable eminence with two peaks, higher than the 
neighboring ridge : the south-eastern, which is much 
the loftier, is called Sinai ; the north-western, Horeb. 
They seem, in fact, to be parts of one and the same 
mountain, and the two names are frequently con- 
founded. Here, while attending to his flock, he saw 
what he calls a strange sight ; a bush flaming with 
fire but unconsumed. He paused and gazed upon it, 
and still the supernatural flame continued. And now, 
issuing from the burning bush, a strangely mysterious 
voice, pronouncing his own name, Moses, Moses, 
thrilled his soul with awe. At length he ventures to 
answer, " Here am I ;" and the voice replied, " Draw 



MOSES. 33 

not nigh hither ; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, 
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 

Whose voice was this ? In a previous verse it is said 
the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame 
of fire out of the midst of a bush. Not an angel, 
but the angel of the Lord ; and not a created angel, 
but the angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus ; for the 
voice continues, in language utterly inappropriate and 
false in the lips of the highest seraph or the first 
archangel, " I am the God of thy father, the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." 
And then it is added, " Moses hid his face, for he was 
afraid to look upon God." Awestruck at this won- 
drous manifestation, his feelings were like those of 
the Prophet when he exclaimed, " Woe is me, for I am 
a man of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the 
King, the Lord of Hosts." On this point, then, among 
believers in the truth of the Bible, there can be no 
controversy. The voice heard by Moses was the voice 
of Jehovah Jesus ; the burning bush was unconsumed, 
because God was in the midst of it. And here, be- 
fore adverting to the more specific design of this man- 
ifestation, let us dwell a moment on the striking em- 
blem presented there on Iioreb's sacred mountain. 

The bush burned with fire, but was unconsumed, be- 
cause God was in the midst of it : an emblem first 
of the Israelites in their bondage. Enduring almost 
every species of cruelty and oppression, divested of 
all civil rights, serfs, bondmen, with one cruel edict 
after another, well calculated utterly to destroy the 
race, they were unconsumed, nay, they increased and 
multiplied ; the Almighty's promise to Abraham 



34: OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

stood sure as the pillars of heaven. In their case, for 
four hundred years the bush flamed with fire but 
was not consumed, for God was there ; an emblem, 
again, of the Church of Christ in all ages. In the 
wilderness and in the furnace of affliction ; now in 
perils among false brethren, and now persecuted by 
the civil power ; furnishing victims for the rack, the 
gibbet, and the stake ; the Church has not been con- 
sumed, for God is in the midst of her, God her ever- 
lasting light. 

" Immovably founded in grace, 
She stands as she ever hath stood, 

And brightly her builder displays, 
And flames with the glory of God." 

Yet once again, in the bush burning but not con- 
sumed, how striking the emblem of an individual 
Christian called to pass through the deep waters of 
affliction. Not only to Paul, but to myriads of the 
tempted and tried followers of the Lamb, is appropri- 
ate the language : " Troubled on every side, yet not 
distressed ; perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, 
but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed." And 
why not ? Because God hath said, " Fear not, for I 
have redeemed thee ; I have called thee by thy name ; 
thou art mine ; when thou passest through the waters 
I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall 
not overflow thee ; when thou walkest through the 
fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame 
kindle upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the 
Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." Hence the lan- 
guage of triumph ascends even from the burning 
bush. 



MOSES. 35 

Turning, however, from these emblematical and 
figurative allusions, let us listen a moment to the 
strange conversation which there passed between 
Moses and his Maker. The Great Supreme, having 
announced himself to the astonished shepherd, makes 
known to him that the time for Israel's deliverance 
is at hand. The Lord said, " I have surely seen the 
affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have 
heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I 
know their sorrows." He adds, " I am come down 
to deliver them ;" and he then and there renews the 
commission to Moses to be his agent in effecting 
that deliverance. Mark here how, as in all similar 
cases, though God employs subordinate agencies, he 
does the work, and to Kim belongs the glory. " / 
am come dovm to deliver tKem, and I will send tKee 
unto Pharoah that tKou mayest bring forth my people 
out of Egypt." Moses appears not to have heeded 
the former part of this declaration, and he answers, 
" Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that 
I should bring forth the children of Israel out of 
Egypt ?" The Almighty reminds him of what he had 
just said : " Surely I will be with thee, and this," 
meaning the burning bush from which he spake, 
" this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee." 
Moses still hesitates. He remembers how his coun- 
trymen had treated him forty years previously, how 
they had exposed him to the vengeance of the king, 
and how he had been obliged to flee for his life, a 
fugitive and a wanderer. In other words, because he 
had failed when running on his own account, he fears 
now to go even with the explicit assurance that God 



36 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

would be with him. Even more surprising than the 
diffidence and backwardness of Moses is the conde- 
scension and forbearance of the Lord. He specifies 
minutely the duties to be performed by him, predicts 
the manner in which his message would be received 
by Pharaoh, and gives directions relative to the course 
of conduct to be pursued by the Israelites. " I will 
stretch out my hand," says he, " and smite Egypt 
with all my wonders, and after that he will let you 
go." Moses, hasty and headstrong as he was on his 
first attempt, still falters and hesitates. " The people," 
says he, " will not believe me nor hearken to my voice ; 
they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee." 
To remove all scruples from his mind, God then 
endues his servant with power to work miracles. He 
is directed to cast his rod upon the ground and it be- 
comes a serpent. He puts his hand into his bosom 
and it becomes leprous, white as snow. He tells 
him, moreover, that if the people are not convinced 
by either of these miracles, he shall have the power 
of changing the waters of the Nile into blood, and 
that thus he shall be able to convince the Israelites, 
beyond all gainsaying, that the God of their fathers 
had sent him upon this great embassy. Is it not 
enough ? One would have thought so. "What more 
could Moses ask? His conduct, however, when in 
the first instance he hastened, unbidden, to the work, 
and now when he hesitates with so many assurances 
of God's protection and presence, has had its coun- 
terpart in the case of many since his day. How 
ready is the man to go whom God hath never sent. 
How backward, timorous, and slow God's chosen in- 



MOSES. 37 

strament. ' Moses now attempts to excuse himself by 
pleading his inability to speak eloquently. " I am," 
says he, " slow of speech and of a slow tongue. I 
am not eloquent." Still the Lord bears with him. 
" Go," says he, " and I will be with thy mouth, and 
teach thee what thou shalt say." And now at length 
God's patience seems almost exhausted. To the as- 
surance that in addition to all his other gifts he would 
add that of persuasive speech, Moses had replied, 
" Send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou 
wilt send ;" that is, select some other agent for this 
work and excuse me. And the anger of the Lord 
was kindled against Moses. He announces his de- 
termination to associate with him his elder brother, 
Aaron : he appears to revoke the promise just given 
of making Moses eloquent. " Thy brother Aaron 
cometh to meet thee, he can speak well ; he shall be 
thy spokesman unto the people, and thou shalt take 
this rod in thy hand wherewith thou shalt do signs." 
The doubts and cavils of Moses being all silenced, 
and he at length appearing willing to do as God 
directed, let us leave him there a moment on Horeb's 
sacred mountain and look back into Egypt. Not 
upon the pomp and glory of the royal court do we 
gaze. To us it is of far more interest to look upon 
Pharoah's bondmen. Let us search for the tribe of 
Levi there. Mixed up in the great mass by the 
Egyptians, but perfectly distinct among themselves, 
they are easily found. The father of this Moses, and 
she who gave him birth, who made the little bask- 
et in which his life was saved on the banks of the 
Nile, are both dead, and lie in undistinguished 



38 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

graves in the land of Egypt. But the little girl of 
whom we spoke, his sister Miriam, now bowed down 
with age, still lives, and Aaron, his elder brother, he 
lives too, or rather drags ont a miserable existence. 
What has become of God's power ? What about the 
land flowing with milk and honey? Ah, talk not 
thus in cruel mockery to these afflicted bondmen. 
Their cup is bitter enough without that. There is 
no vision, no revelation from the God of Abraham. 
All is dark. The past, let it be forgotten ; the future, 
'tis too gloomy to dwell upon ; and the present, O, it 
is full of groanings, apparently unheard, of oppression 
unceasing and almost unbearable. But there is a 
little star rising in the midst of this dense darkness — 
a star the harbinger of returning day. It is very 
faint as yet, but it shall increase to the splendor of a 
noon-day sun. That little star is the voice of God to 
the astonished Aaron, " Go forth to meet Moses ;" 
and he went and met him in the mount of God, that 
is, in Mount Hoi*eb, and kissed him. Their joy in 
thus meeting together after so long a separation was 
doubtless mutual. Thenceforth associated for the 
great work, they proceed hand in hand for the deliver- 
ance of their people, and under God's direction to 
lead them through the wilderness to the promised 
land. 

I have dwelt so long and so minutely on the main 
subjects before us, that there is little time and 
less occasion for any lengthened practical observa- 
tions. I advert briefly to one point. The first utter- 
ance of the voice at the burning bush was, " put off 
thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon 



MOSES. 39 

thou standest is holy ground." It was thus, by putting 
off the shoe or sandal, that the ancients indicated 
reverence and solemnity. The practice is even yet 
common among the nations of the East. And why 
was that place holy ground? Why? Because God 
was there. The same God whom we worship in tem- 
ples built by hands, who hath said, "Wherever I re- 
cord my name, I will come and bless thee." It is not 
ours to indicate reverence for God's house by putting 
off the shoe, it is ours to cultivate and evince respect- 
ful demeanor ; to avoid all light and trifling conduct ; 
to be serious and solemn in the sanctuary set apart 
for his service. Even the benighted heathen studied 
propriety of deportment in the temple of his idols ; 
and shall we be rude, irreverent, boorish, ungentle- 
manly ? Nay, rather let us ever remember that the 
place is holy ground, that this is God's house. Let 
nothing be done to desecrate it, to mar its solemn as- 
sociations. " Holiness becometh thy house, O Lord, 
forever." Let it be ours 

" To make the Church below 
Kesemble that above, 
Where streams of bliss forever flow 
In purity and love." 



40 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



' CHAPTEK III. 

HIS COMMISSION". 

Two or three preliminary remarks will appropri- 
ately introduce the subject of this chapter. The 
king of Egypt here spoken of is called Pharaoh ; 
that, however, is not to be understood as a proper 
name, but rather a title assumed by each successive 
monarch when he ascended the throne. According 
to Josephus, for more than three thousand years each 
succeeding king was called Pharaoh. Inattention to 
this fact has led to many errors in Bible chronology. 
This was not the Pharaoh whose daughter rescued 
Moses from the Nile, but one of his successors, and 
it is not strange that he was actuated by the same 
spirit as those who preceded him, especially with 
reference to the Israelites. They were a source of 
great revenue to the State. They had descended 
to him, by inheritance, with the crown he wore, and 
were regarded, as men even in our day are wont to 
regard their fellow-men in like circumstances, as 
property. I know not whether he claimed his right 
to this property in bones and sinews and souls by any 
clause in the Egyptian constitution, or indeed whether 
in those days they had any such thing. One fact is 
clear, he held on to his bondmen with a tenacity, and 
treated them with a severity, that may be well re- 
garded as a model for all slaveholders in similar cir- 
cumstances, " Who is the Lord, that I should obey 



MOSES. 41 

his voice?" "I will not let Israel go." The lan- 
guage respecting the hardening of Pharaoh's heart 
is to be taken in connection with those other passages 
wherein God speaks of himself as hardening Pha- 
raoh's heart. Some, looking only at this latter de- 
claration, have gone so far as to make the Egyptian 
king nothing more than a machine, divesting him of 
all blame, and in fact making the great and holy 
God the author of Pharaoh's sin, and responsible for 
his cruelty. This is indeed most monstrous. Pha- 
raoh from the beginning to the end of his career 
was a free moral agent. How then did God harden 
Pharaoh's heart ? In the language of an eminent 
biblical critic, " God is frequently represented in the 
Scriptures as doing what he only permits to be done. 
Because a man has grieved his spirit, and resisted his 
grace, he withdraws his spirit and grace from him, 
and thus he becomes bold and presumptuous in sin." 
It is expressly stated, even after repeated exhibitions 
of God's power, that Pharaoh sinned more and more, 
and hardened his heart, he and his servants. Then 
" God gave him up to judicial blindness, so that he 
rushed on stubbornly to his own destruction." God 
chose to permit him to have his own way " without 
restraint from divine influence," and the result was a 
stupendous exhibition of the omnipotence and justice 
of Jehovah ; an exhibition well calculated to impress 
the Israelites with reverence for the God of their 
fathers, to teach the Egyptians the folly of trusting 
to their idols, and to give to the universe a clear indi- 
cation that though oppression may riot for a time, and 
man be crushed beneath a despot's heel, a day of 



42 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

reckoning will come. Such facts as these caused an 
American statesman, himself a slaveholder, to ex- 
claim, " I tremble for my country when I remember 
that God is just." 

But let us resume the narrative. Soon after Moses 
returned to his home from the wonderful vision of the 
burning bush, of which we have spoken, he announces 
to his family his desire to go back to the land of 
Egypt, from which, forty years before, he had fled for 
his life. As a matter of prudence, he conceals, even 
from them, his object in wishing to go thither. He 
tells them nothing about the commission he had re- 
ceived from the Almighty, the miracles God had ena- 
bled him to perform, or the wonderful revelation at 
the burning bush. His father-in-law makes no objec- 
tion, and his wife prepares for this unexpected jour- 
ney into a land of which she had heard as a region of 
idolatry and superstition and cruelty. His two sons 
also, Gershom and Eliezer, now grown to man's 
estate, little dreaming of the wonders they are to 
witness and the prominent part they are to take in 
the future history of Israel, bid adieu to the home of 
their birth, and accompany their parents. 

As they journey thitherward, turn we our thoughts 
to the chosen people of God. It appears that during 
all the years of their bondage they retained some sort 
of rank and government among themselves. Each 
of the twelve tribes had its own distinct peculiarities. 
They remembered and observed, so far as circum- 
stances would permit, the religious ceremonies taught 
them by their fathers. They had indeed no Bible, 
but the promises were handed down from parents to 



MOSES. 43 

children. There were among them, even in the 
darkest day they had yet seen, a few who looked for 
their redemption, and for the fulfillment of the prom- 
ises of a covenant-keeping God. They met, probably, 
in some sequestered spot when the labors of the day 
were over. Representatives from all the tribes were 
there. Two men, one in his eighty-third, the other 
in his eightieth year, have a communication to make. 
The countenance of the younger was strange to them ; 
and no wonder, they had not seen him for forty 
years ; but the elder was well known. It was Aaron, 
the son of Amram, of the tribe of Levi. He had 
been with them all his life, sharing their toils and 
their afflictions. He is the speaker on the occasion, 
while Moses stands by in silence. Listen to him of 
whom God himself testifies, "he can speak well." 
Never had man a more soul-stirring theme. He ad- 
verts to their ancestry ; to Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob ; to Joseph, through whose instrumentality their 
forefathers had at first emigrated into Egypt. The 
speaker waxes warmer as he recounts the wrongs in- 
flicted upon them, and his eye lights up with a super- 
natural fire as he declares that the day of their 
emancipation is at hand"; In the countenances of 
his hearers you may read listlessness, incredulity, 
doubt. How can these things be ? They were born 
bondmen ; they never knew the rights, the feelings, 
the anxiety of freemen. They had looked up to the 
Egyptians as beings of a superior order. The strains 
of Aaron sounded like the echoings of far-off music 
that had visited them in dreams, when, after a day's 
hard toil, they had lain down to sleep in the quarry 



44 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

or the brick-field. They had heard of the covenant 
made with the father of the faithful ; with his son, 
who was virtually offered up on Mount Moriah ; and 
with the man who wrestled with the angel, from whom 
they derived their name. They seemed to them like 
the invention of a poet or a tale of romance. 

And now Aaron speaks of Jehovah's wonderful man- 
ifestation to his brother Moses at the burning bush. 
" Listen, my brethren, it is a message from the eternal 
world, from the God of our fathers ; from Him who 
led Abraham out, and bade him gaze upon the star- 
gemmed firmament, and said, ' So shall thy seed 
be ;' from Him who said of the victim bound upon 
the altar, ' With Isaac will I establish my covenant ;' 
from Him who blessed the fainting and wounded wrest- 
ler, and ' gave unto him his new name, even Israel,' 
the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Hear 
him. He hath said, ' I have surely seen the afflic- 
tion of my people which are in Egypt, and have 
heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I 
know their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver 
them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring 
them up out of that land unto a good land and a 
large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.' " Still 
the people hesitate. It seems much easier to believe 
that the eloquent speaker is a visionary dreamer than 
to believe that these things are so. Can it be ? Has 
the God of their fathers sent unto them this message ? 

As the people stand stupified with amazement at 
the soul-stirring appeal of their associate, Aaron, he 
turns to his brother, and takes from him the wonder- 
working rod. He throws it upon the ground in the 



MOSES. 45 

midst of them. It becomes instinct with life and 
motion. 'Tis a crawling, hissing serpent, from which 
they recoil, as Moses himself did on the brow of 
Mount Horeb. Aaron allows them to gaze upon it 
a few moments. Then, to their increasing surprise, 
he seizes this serpent by the tail, and it is reconverted 
into a piece of dead wood, a simple rod. The elders 
of Israel draw nearer to look more closely at it ; to 
detect, if possible, any trick that may have been 
played upon them. Aaron allows them to examine 
it. While they are doing so, he calmly puts his hand 
in his bosom and draws it thence, and behold it is 
white as snow, all covered with the unmistakable 
pollution of the leprosy, a disease ever held in dread 
by the Israelites. By the same power by which this 
wonder was effected that hand is restored to perfect 
soundness. And now Aaron calls for some of the water 
of the Nile, that river once so full of horror to every 
new-made Israelitish mother. The water is brought, 
Aaron pours it forth upon the dry ground, and even 
as God had said, the water is turned into blood. The 
people gaze astonished. Truly the God of their 
fathers must have sent this messenger. Doubt and 
distrust vanish, and in the simple language of Moses, 
they believe, they bow their heads and worship. A 
joyous hour, a glorious spectacle for the two brothers. 
The vast multitude are worshiping the God of their 
fathers, and looking forward joyously to the fulfillment 
of his promise and their deliverance from the yoke of 
bondage. 

A few days afterward, with what appeared most 
astonishing assurance, the very highest pitch of 



46 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

audacity, these two men present themselves before 
the king. They make a bold demand : " Tims saith 
the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go." Pha- 
raoh answers : " Who is the Lord that I should obey 
his voice ? I know not the Lord, neither will I let 
Israel go." Instead of complying with the demand, 
he ruthlessly increased the severity of his conduct 
toward his bondmen. The same day he commanded 
the taskmasters of the people and their officers, say- 
ing : " Ye shall no more give the people straw to 
make brick as heretofore ; let them go and gather 
straw for themselves ; and the tale of the bricks ye 
shall not diminish. Let more work be laid upon the 
men ; for they be idle, therefore they say, let us go 
and offer sacrifice to our God." I may observe here, 
in passing, that the bricks used in ancient Egypt, 
specimens of which are preserved to this day in mu- 
seums and the cabinets of the curious, were merely 
clay and straw kneaded together, and not burned, 
but dried in the sun. Instead of the straw necessary 
for the purpose, and which had hitherto been fur- 
nished them, they are now obliged to substitute any 
kind of stubble, which they may find where they 
can. Of course the brutal command was not com- 
plied with. It could not be. The king required 
what was impossible. It seems that Pharaoh's task- 
masters, or drivers, had selected from among the 
bondmen, deputies, whose special duty it was to see 
that the slaves in their several gangs performed the 
daily task allotted to them. An odious office, and 
yet one which exempted them from the severer toil 
of their fellows. Little cause had they, however, to 



MOSES. 47 

congratulate themselves on this exemption. When 
it was found that the Israelites, from sheer inability, 
had not made the number of bricks required, these 
men were punished ; " beaten," says the sacred 
writer; by which he means, probably, bastinadoed, 
that being the usual method of inflicting punishment 
in Egypt. 

A little lenity on the part of Pharaoh just at this 
point would have materially relieved the darkness 
of his character, and might possibly have averted or 
at any rate delayed the impending storm that was 
gathering over his head. But, as in other instances, 
of which the pages of history are full, one act of des- 
potic cruelty seems but to have prepared the way for 
another. And he answered the poor suppliants 
roughly : " Te are idle, ye are idle," said he, " there- 
fore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord. 
Go, therefore, now and work ; for there shall be no 
straw given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of 
bricks." As was natural, the Israelites thus rudely 
repulsed, and seeing, as the sacred writer expresses 
it, that they were in evil case, turn to their country- 
men, Moses and Aaron, and charge upon them this 
aggravation of their bitter cup. " The Lord," say 
they, " look upon you, and judge, because ye have 
made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pha- 
raoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword 
in their hand to slay us." As if they had said, it is 
owing to your interference, to your tale relative to 
the appearance of the God of our fathers at the burn- 
ing bush, and to your demand upon the king for our 
emancipation, that a pretense has been given him to 



48 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

oppress and afflict us even unto death. You pre- 
tended to come from the God of our fathers. Tou 
told us we should be free. Tou deceived us with 
your pretended miracles, with your rod, and your 
serpent, and your water converted into blood." Let 
us not too hastily condemn their conduct. The charge, 
in fact, was true. It was owing to the bold demand 
made by God's messengers upon King Pharaoh that 
he had thus increased the severity of their afflic- 
tions ; and truly their stroke was heavier than their 
groaning. 

It is said that oppression will make a wise man 
mad ; what marvel, then, that these uneducated bond- 
men should allow their exasperated feelings to find 
vent against those through whose instrumentality 
they believed that these fresh calamities had befallen 
them. And where are the two brothers, and what 
are their feelings at this disastrous commencement of 
an enterprise undertaken by the express direction of 
the Almighty? Of Aaron, the spokesman on the 
occasion, we hear nothing. Probably his faith fal- 
tered, and he sought in solitude to hide his chagrin, 
or with his family he mourned over his own and his 
people's blasted hopes and blighted expectations. 
Moses himself seems to be completely discouraged. 
It is said he returned unto the Lord, by which we are 
to understand probably to some place of prayer, 
where God was wont to meet with him. It needs 
little aid from the imagination to enter somewhat 
into his feelings. His language on the occasion 
referred to is an index to the emotions of his soul. 
He remembered now the treatment he had received 



MOSES. 49 

forty years before, when he was obliged to flee for 
his life because he had endeavored to free his coun- 
trymen from the oppressor's yoke. Did he not re- 
member, too, the forty previous years when, in the 
palace of the king, he led a life of luxury and ease % 
There is no evidence, however, that he regretted the 
decision he then made when he chose rather to suffer 
affliction with the people of God. If he had not 
made that choice it is possible that he himself might 
by this time have succeeded to the throne. He 
might have been the Pharaoh, and in his hands the 
scepter of Egypt and the destiny of his countrymen. 
I say, it might have been so; and how easily, as 
human wisdom can readily perceive, how easily thus 
to have effected the deliverance of his countrymen 
and their exaltation to the highest pitch of worldly 
prosperity. He, however, who sees the end from the 
beginning, who might have placed Moses on the 
throne, or with one blast of the breath of his nostrils 
have annihilated the tyrant, how clearly in this mat- 
ter do we perceive that his ways are not as our ways, 
and that although justice and judgment are the hab- 
itation of his throne, clouds and darkness are round 
about him. And Moses, with what seems to us 
strange familiarity, ventures to inquire of his God a 
reason for this unexpected result of his first embassy 
to the Egyptian king. " Wherefore, O Lord, hast 
thou so evil entreated this people ? "Why is it that 
thou hast sent me ? for since I came to Pharaoh he 
hath done evil to this people." " My coming to them, 
even under thy direction, seems to have increased 
their misery, and why is it ? " To this questioning 



50 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

no answer is returned, for " He giveth no account of 
his dealings ;" but reiterating his purpose to cause the 
deliverance of the Israelites, he makes to his servant 
a clearer revelation of his own name and character. 
" I appeared," says the Holy One, " unto Abraham, 
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Al- 
mighty ; but by my name Jehovah was I not known 
to them." 

But how was it that by this name he was not 
known to the early patriarchs ? It is most evident 
that we find the word Jehovah previous to this, even 
as far back as in the days of Abraham. Two answers 
have been given to this question. One is, that those 
passages wherein the name occurs were not written 
till long afterward, and that it occurs there by antici- 
pation; the other is, that although the name itself 
may have been known, they understood little com- 
paratively of its import. They knew nothing of that 
wonder-working power by which he designed now to 
reveal himself. Moses is now directed to " say unto 
the children of Israel, I am the Lord, (Jehovah,) and 
I will bring you out from under the burdens of the 
Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, 
and I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and 
with great judgments, and I will take you to me for 
a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall 
know that I am Jehovah." Thus commissioned 
anew, Moses calls together again the elders of Israel. 
He rehearses the declarations of his God ; but, alas ! 
he makes no impression upon them. Aaron but a 
little while since had pressed the cup of hope to their 
lips, but it had been rudely dashed away. They seem 



MOSES. 51 

to dread this Moses, and to look upon him as the 
cause of increasing their already almost unbearable 
affliction. They hearkened not unto Moses for 
anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. And this 
perhaps was the dreariest hour in the history of this 
heaven-appointed leader of God's chosen people. 
" Behold," says he in the bitterness of his soul, " be- 
hold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto 
me ; how then, O Lord, how then shall Pharaoh hear 
me ? " what probability that he will heed my message 
when they refuse to hear % that he will listen and let 
thy people go when they themselves to whom liberty 
is promised in thy name turn a deaf ear, and choose 
rather to bear the ills they suffer than do anything 
that may have a tendency to increase the severity of 
their afflictions ? 

Moses was right. In the history of our world per- 
haps there has never been a people more severely 
oppressed, more degraded, more spiritless than the 
Israelites at this time. So far from being actuated 
by that intense desire for national independence 
which sometimes burns so intensely as to destroy 
every other idea and nerves the weakest with the 
sentiment, " Who would be free himself must strike 
the blow," they do not even venture to desire free- 
dom ; nay, they are unwilling to listen to the voice 
that proclaims their deliverance at hand. In this mis- 
erable state we leave them, and spend a few moments 
upon a thought naturally suggested by the long con- 
tinuance of their bondage and their present condition. 

And first, how true it is that not in this life, nor by 
the circumstances in which men are placed^ may we 



52 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

judge of the favor with which God regards them. A 
superficial observer would have hastily concluded 
that these Israelites were suffering on account of the 
displeasure of Jehovah ; that Pharaoh and his court, 
reveling in luxury and rioting in all worldly good, 
were high in the favor of God. But what a mistake 
would that be, though a very natural one and very 
common. " I was envious," says the Psalmist, " at 
the prosperity of the wicked. They are not in 
trouble," he continues, " as other men. Their eyes 
stand out with fatness, they have more than heart 
can wish ;" and all this notwithstanding he knew 
them to be corrupt, and says, " They speak wickedly 
concerning oppression." The Psalmist envied them, 
but only for a season. God showed him their end ; 
how from the slippery places in which they stood 
they were suddenly hurled into destruction. So, too, 
on the other hand, temporal affliction, severe and pro- 
tracted though it be, is no evidence of the anger or 
the displeasure of God. These despised and degraded 
Israelites were his people. He had not forgotten 
his promises. He remembered his covenant. 

Secondly, how in the inscrutable providence of 
God does he permit even his chosen ones to drink 
deeply of the bitter cup of disappointment, and how 
slowly are the designs of Providence developed 
and effected ! Four hundred years of bondage ! 
what a long time for a people to whom God had 
promised a land flowing with milk and honey ! 
'Twas a dreary and tedious night ; yet through the 
whole of it the star of promise looks down upon them, 
calmly and clearly shining with its mild luster, and 



MOSES. 53 

giving assurance that the day will dawn. So with 
the promise of a Messiah. How slowly did one cen- 
tury after another pass away, and one nation succeed 
another in its rise and glory and decay, and yet He 
came not. It was written of by succeeding seers, at 
first in dark enigmas, then with greater and increas- 
ing clearness, that the Shiloh should appear, that the 
desire of all nations shall come, and yet he came not. 
The voice that heralded his approach in the wilder- 
ness of Judea was not heard until the fullness of time 
had come. Prophets and kings waited for it, longed 
after it, and died. They passed away, and for the 
hoary-headed Simeon was reserved the sight which 
called forth the joyous outburst, " Now let thy servant 
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.'' 
So with the predictions of the latter-day glory 
with which the Bible is studded as with gems, 
outvying the glory of the stars in the firmament. 
This earth shall be filled with the glory of God. 
Christ's dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from 
the rivers unto the ends of the earth. The exulting 
shout shall go, up and be caught by the flaming ser- 
aphim around the throne; the kingdoms of this 
world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of 
his Christ. But O how slowly, as man estimates 
progress, how slowly does the Gospel win its way ! 
What myriads of our race are yet in bondage worse 
than that of Egypt, bondslaves of sin, and led captive 
by the devil at his will. This slowness of the fulfill- 
ment of God's promises leads men, as it has led them 
from the beginning, into two grievous errors, the one 
theoretical, the other practical. During the long 



54 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

niglit of their captivity the children of Israel appear 
to have given themselves up to almost total unbelief 
in the promises made to Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob. Multitudes on our earth when it had reached 
the fortieth century of its existence had been taught 
to look upon the promises relative to the coming of 
the Messiah as the syren song of a visionary dreamer. 
They said, " Where is the promise of his coming, for 
since the fathers fell asleep all things remain as they 
were from the beginning of the world." And how is 
it now not only with avowed unbelievers, but with 
Christians who profess to receive with implicit confi- 
dence the word of God. How stealthily and yet 
assuredly does unbelief creep into the very vitals of 
the Church. Nearly two thousand years have passed, 
and yet the nations have not ceased to learn war ; the 
lion and the lamb do not lie down together; the 
wilderness and the solitary place are not yet all made 
glad ; the desert does not everywhere blossom as the 
rose ; and the inference, like that which the Israelites 
drew from what appeared the unaccountable delay of 
God while they groaned in the house of bondage, 
even now is, He hath forgotten his promise, or it is 
not to be understood literally. It is the highwrought 
language of poetry and not the declaration of simple 
fact. Two thousand years ! truly a long time if com- 
pared with the threescore and ten which limits man's 
earthly destiny; but what a mere point of time, 
what an inconceivable speck, when contrasted with 
existence that shall never end ! 

Do we see oppression and high-handed injustice 
and despotic power apparently triumphant here and 



MOSES. 55 

there upon this goodly earth, the footstool of Jeho- 
vah ? There are many Pharaohs as reckless of the 
rights of man as he who domineered over God's 
people in the land of Egypt. Suppose you that it 
will be always so ? Are you tempted sometimes to 
think that God hath forsaken or forgotten this beau- 
tiful but sin-blasted world? It is right that you 
should feel sympathy for the oppressed, and that 
your cry should mingle with theirs as it ascends into 
the ears of Him whose soul hateth violence and 
wrong, and who hath sworn to punish the oppressor ; 
but let not your benevolence and philanthropy drive 
you into wild and visionary fanaticism, nor indulge 
thoughts that He in whom one day is as a thousand 
years and a thousand years as one day moves too 
slowly for the accomplishment of his own purposes. 
Do your duty, and rest assured of it God will glori- 
ously vindicate his own immutable justice and his 
eternal truth and righteousness. Would you take 
into your hands the reins and drive Jehovah's chariot 
furiously? We now see those Israelites in circum- 
stances more hopeless, in affliction of tenfold greater 
severity than ever before. Moses is utterly discour- 
aged, and Aaron is apparently ashamed of the part 
he had been called upon to perform. God's promise 
seems to be broken ; the high and the holy is even 
charged by his servant with insincerity : " Why is it 
that thou hast sent me ? thou hast not delivered thy 
people at all." So murmured Moses ; but he was to 
see these same bondmen come forth triumphantly, 
with songs of rejoicing, and God's arm stretched out 
for their deliverance and all his promises fulfilled. 



56 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

"When we reflect upon the little apparent success 
resulting from the preaching of the Gospel, the una- 
vailing toil of the missionary in foreign lands, to say- 
nothing of the slowness with which the ark moves 
onward in our own country, are we sometimes tempt- 
ed to doubt whether indeed it be the power of God 
unto salvation to restrain prayer, and to withhold our 
contributions from a cause that to our dim vision 
seems absolutely hopeless ? Let this subject teach us 
to check the first buddings of such miserable unbe- 
lief. We are not responsible for what God leaves 
undone, nor for what he does, nor for how he does it. 
We are only responsible for our own conduct, and for 
the faith in God from which it springs ; and he hath 
said, " Blessed are they that have not seen and yet 
have believed." 



MOSES. 57 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE PASSOYEE. 

Lsr the course of our narrative we have reached 
the year from the creation 2513. It is the fourteenth 
night of the month Abib or Nisan, which answers to 
the latter half of our March and the former half of 
April, and is henceforth to be deemed the beginning 
of the Jewish sacred or ecclesiastical year. Nothing 
remarkable has occurred during the day. Men have 
been engaged in their usual pursuits. The farmer 
has been at work in the field, the mechanic in his 
shop, and the merchant has been buying and selling 
and scheming to get money. Those of noble and of 
royal blood, the aristocracy of birth and wealth, have 
been reveling in the enjoyment of their possessions ; 
while the Israelitish bondman, at his unrequited toil, 
has wiped the bitter sweat from his brow and looked 
forward to the hour when his weary limbs shall find 
rest in the grave. The sun sank peacefully behind 
the western hills, and now the broad-faced moon is 
riding calmly in the heavens. As she looked down 
at the close of that day when the glorious morn of 
creation broke and the world in the smile of God 
awoke, so now placidly her face is turned upon the 
lovely land of Egypt ; her beams dance merrily upon 
the waters of the Nile, and gild with mellow luster 
the heaven-confronting pyramids. She sheds her bor- 
rowed rays too upon the cottages of the poor, the hut 



58 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

of the peasant and the hovel of the slave. By her 
light may be seen strange marks upon the door-posts 
of these lowly dwellings. Look at them. They are 
sprinkled with blood. "lis the blood of a lamb new- 
ly slain. What does it mean ? "Why was that lamb 
slaughtered, and why this blood sprinkled ? 

To answer that question we must look back and 
trace rapidly the events immediately preceding this 
memorable event. 

Encouraged and fortified by renewed directions 
and promises, Moses and his brother Aaron again pre- 
sent themselves before King Pharaoh. They demand 
as before the liberation of their kinsmen. A trial of 
skill ensues between Aaron and the Egyptian magi- 
cians, who by some slight of hand convert their rods 
also into the appearance of serpents. They imitate 
also the miracle by which the waters of the Nile 
were turned into blood, and that which brought in- 
numerable quantities of frogs upon the land. The 
names of two of these magicians, Jannes and Jambres, 
are given by the Apostle Paul ; and it is a reasonable 
question, Why did God permit this trial of skill be- 
tween his servants and these impostors ? Doubtless 
that Moses and Aaron might evince, as they presently 
did, that their works were of a different and a vastly 
higher order, and that the Egyptians might see and 
acknowledge the supremacy of Israel's God. And 
this was the result ; for at the coming of the third 
plague, when Aaron stretched forth his rod and 
smote the dust of the earth and it became lice in man 
and in beast, the magicians said unto Pharaoh, 
" This is the finger of God ;" that is, the power and 



HOSES. 59 

skill of God are here evident. Probably before this 
the magicians supposed Moses and Aaron to be con- 
jurors like themselves ; but now they see that here is 
something more than man could do. 

The fourth plague speedily followed, and there 
came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of 
Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses, and into all 
the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted by rea- 
son of the swarm of flies. The magicians pretend 
no longer to cope with these servants of Jehovah, 
and Pharaoh's heart begins to fail him. " Go ye," 
says he, "go and sacrifice to your God; but do it 
here in the land of Egypt." "Not so," replies 
Moses ; " we will go three days' journey into the wil- 
derness, where we may be free from the superstitious 
jealousy of the Egyptians." Mark the boldness of 
his language, We will go three days' journey ; and 
henceforth we find in his conduct no more of that 
timorous and distrustful backwardness which hitherto 
distinguished him. To this demand the king promises 
reluctantly his consent. On condition that this tor- 
menting plague shall cease, he agrees that the Israel- 
ites may go into the wilderness ; " Only," says he, 
" go not very far away." He seems as yet to have 
had no idea of parting with his property and of losing 
forever the revenue derived from his bondmen's toil. 

Even this promise he violates the next day, when 
at the intercession of Moses God withdraws the 
scourge, and the flies disappear. He "hardened 
his heart, neither would he let the people go." In 
rapid succession follow one plague after another. A 
grievous pestilence called the murrain falls upon the 



60 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

cattle of the Egyptians, upon the horses, upon the 
asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the 
sheep. In order to ascertain whether this disease 
may not be attributed to what are called natural 
causes Pharaoh directs an inquiry to be made, and 
behold ! there was not one of the cattle of the Israel- 
ites dead. The plague, in its mysterious visitation, 
had fallen only upon the cattle of the oppressors. 
Upon themselves falls • the next affliction. , In the 
presence of the king and his wise men Moses takes 
ashes from the furnace and sprinkles it up toward 
heaven, ashes in all probability from those furnaces 
in w^hich his countrymen had toiled, and which had 
been watered with their sweat and with their tears. 
Forthwith, in the shape of inflammatory swellings and 
burning boils, a tormenting disease appears upon the 
bodies of Pharaoh and his wise men and upon all the 
Egyptians. The magicians themselves share in this 
affliction. They stand awe-stricken in the presence 
of Moses, unable to afford relief to their countrymen 
or to heal themselves. 

And now the heavens are gathering blackness. 
From the thick cloud issue vivid lightnings and ter- 
rible thunders ; and there was hail, says the narrative, 
and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such as 
there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since 
it became a nation. By the fire mingled with the 
hail we are to understand the electric fluid, that being 
essential to the formation of hail. It appears to have 
been supplied in supernatural quantities. It ran 
along upon the ground, and the hail smote and broke 
the herbs of the garden, and the trees of the fields and 



MOSES. 61 

the cattle, and the men, who were unsheltered when 
its fury burst upon them. . But strange to say, in the 
land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, 
there was no hail. In accounting for the terror with 
which this storm filled the Egyptians, we must remem- 
ber that in the land of Egypt storms of rain and hail 
are very unusual. All historians and travelers are 
agreed on this point. It rained once at Thebes, and 
it caused, says Herodotus, great surprise. The cli- 
mate in this reBpect has undergone but little change. 
Completely terrified, and apparently humbled, the 
tyrant sends for Moses and Aaron. " I have sinned 
this time," says he ; " the Lord is righteous, and I 
and my people are wicked, It is enough. Entreat 
the Lord for me that there be no more mighty thun- 
derings and hail, and I will let you go." Immedi- 
ately Moses spread forth his hands unto the Lord, 
and the thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was 
not poured upon the earth. Pharaoh is again dis- 
posed to violate his promise. His servants and offi- 
cers of state now come unto him and entreat him to 
let the people go. "Knowest thou not yet," say 
they, " that Egypt is destroyed ! " At their request 
he appears to yield the point so far as to permit the 
men to depart, supposing that they will speedily re- 
turn; but the meek Moses, now bold as a lion in 
the king's presence, declares, " We will go with our 
young and with our old, with our sons and with our 
daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we 
go." But the king would not listen to his demand 
for a moment. The plague of the locusts ensues. 
Innumerable swarms of that destructive insect went 



62 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

up over all the land of Egypt and rested in all the 
coasts ; very grievous were they. " Before them," 
says the record, " were no such locusts as they, nei- 
ther after them shall be such, for they covered the 
face of the earth, so that the land was darkened, and 
they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit 
of the trees which the hail had left, and there re- 
mained not any green thing in the trees, or in the 
herbs of the field through all the land of Egypt." In 
this dreary scene the proud Egyptian once more 
humbles himself and sends in haste for the terrible 
leader of his bondmen. " I have sinned," says he, 
" against the Lord your God and against you. For- 
give I pray thee only this once, and entreat the Lord 
your God that he may take away this plague only." 
But the tyrant lied again. Like many a one since 
his day, who in the hour of affliction makes vows of 
amendment to be forgotten when the calamity passes 
away, so Pharaoh, when the locusts disappear, hard- 
ens his heart against God and resolves to hold on to 
his slaves. 

As the result of the next visitation of the Almighty, 
the supernatural darkness, a darkness which might 
be felt in all the land of Egypt, while the Israelites 
had light in their dwellings, the king relents again 
and goes a step further than he had yet ventured. 
" Go," says he, " go serve the Lord. Take your 
wives and your little ones with you, only leave behind 
your flocks and herds." Fear and avarice seem to be 
contending in his bosom. He sees and feels the 
power of the God of Israel ; he trembles at it, but he 
can hardly consent to give all up. " Leave behind 



MOSES. 63 

you your flocks and herds." " Not so," replies 
Moses, " our cattle shall go with us ; not a hoof shall 
be left behind." Stung to madness by this reply, he 
threatens the bold leader of his revolted slaves with 
death. " See my face no more, for in the day thou 
seest my face thou shalt die." " It is well," replies 
Moses ; " I will see thy face no more." It is the last 
message of mercy. Something more terrible than 
the rod of Moses is to follow ; the day of vengeance 
from the arm of Jehovah is at hand. The pride of 
Egypt has been humbled; their most sacred preju- 
dices wounded; the Nile had been contaminated; 
the dwellings polluted by loathsome reptiles ; their 
cleanly persons defiled by vermin ; their pure air had 
swarmed with troublesome insects ; their cattle had 
perished by a dreadful malady ; their bodies broken 
out with a filthy disease ; their harvests had been de- 
stroyed by the hail and the locusts ; an awful dark- 
ness had enveloped them for three days ; but the 
deliverance was to be extorted by a far more appall- 
ing calamity. 

By the direction of the Almighty each separate 
family of the Israelites has provided for itself a lamb, 
a male of the first year without blemish. In those 
cases where the family was small two neighbors 
unified, and the lamb thus provided was kept up from 
the tenth to the fourteenth day of the month. In 
the afternoon of that day, that is, between twelve 
and three o'clock, or as the Jews styled it, between 
the sixth and the ninth hour, the head of the family 
bled the lamb to death — a bone of him was not to be 
broken — and dipping a branch of hyssop into the 



64 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. " 

blood, he therewith sprinkled the lintel and the two 
side posts of the door of his dwelling. " That blood," 
says Jehovah, " shall be to you for a token upon the 
houses where ye are, and when I see the blood, I will 
pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you 
to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt." 
This being done, the Israelites make preparation for 
the last meal they are to eat in their state of bondage. 

The entire body of the slaughtered lamb has 
been roasted ; with unleavened bread and with bitter 
herbs, with their loins girded, with shoes on their feet 
and staffs in their hands, they feast together, each 
family by itself. " And it came to pass that at mid- 
night the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of 
Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his 
throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in 
the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle ; and 
there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a 
house where there was not one dead. But the de- 
stroying angel passed over the houses sprinkled with 
the blood of the lamb, The inmates of those dwellings 
were safe ; the time of their deliverance had come. 

Thence onward in the history of this people, in 
all their varying circumstances, they were directed 
to keep this feast annually. When your children 
shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service ? 
ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's pass- 
over, a perpetual memorial of that dreadful night 
when the last plague fell upon the oppressor, and 
when, in accordance with his own promise, our God 
.did pass over our blood-besprinkled dwellings. And 
the Israelites did thus keep the feast of the Pass- 



MOSES. 65 

over, and saw in that spriijkled blood, that blood of 
a lamb without blemish, an emblem of that blood, 
without which there is no remission of sin. 

For about fifteen hundred years was this ceremony 
observed, and now, at the end of that time, let me 
introduce you to its last literal observance. It is 
in the city of Jerusalem in an upper room. Every 
necessary preparation has been made. A family of 
thirteen persons united by ties stronger than those 
of kindred or of blood have assembled. Listen to 
the head of the family as, taking his place at the table, 
he says, " "With desire I have desired to eat this pass- 
over with you before I suffer ; for I say unto you I 
will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in 
the kingdom of God." Need I tell you who it is that 
speaks ? Your own hearts answer the question. It 
is He who alone has the right to abrogate the Jewish 
ceremonial. He of whom the lambs slain upon their 
altars were types and figures. He of whom the bold 
Baptist said, " Behold the Lamb of God who taketh 
away the sins of the world." He whom one of that 
little company assembled there in Jerusalem after- 
ward, in a vision upon the desolate isle of Patmos, 
saw in the midst of the throne of God as it had been 
a lamb slain. He of whom Paul says, " Christ our 
passover is slain for us." 

He supersedes now the feast instituted by Jeho- 
vah in the land of Egypt by a simpler, a more touching 
and a more expressive ceremonial. It is comprised 
in two words, Do this : so saying, he breaks bread and 
pours forth wine. " This is my body which is given 
for you ; this is my blood which is shed for you." It is 



66 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

our paschal Lamb that speaks ; himself the priest, him- 
self the victim. Were the Israelites directed, in their 
several families, to eat the flesh of the slaughtered vic- 
tim ? So says He, " Take, eat, this is my body ; whoso 
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, 
and I will raise him up at the last day ; for my flesh 
is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed." Was 
the passover instituted to commemorate a great de- 
liverance wrought out by the wonder-working power 
of God himself? Truly it was a great deliverance. 
The number of the Israelites who went forth triumph- 
ant from the house of bondage was not less probably 
than three millions, for there were six hundred thou- 
sand effective men, besides the Levites, the aged and 
infirm, the women and children. In another sense it 
was a great deliverance. It was a transition not from 
a mere state of colonial dependence or of vassalage, 
but of bitter and cruel and barbarous bondage. 
Slaves last night, to-day freemen. But how much 
greater the deliverance effected by our paschal Lamb, 
the great Antitype of the Jewish victims. It is the 
sundering of the chains that fetter the spirit, the 
emancipation of the soul. It proclaims in tones 
sweeter than the music of the spheres, louder than the 
reverberating echoes of the jubilee trumpet, " Ye are 
no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of 
the saints and of the household of God." The tyrant's 
power is broken, the serpent's head is bruised, life and 
immortality are brought to light. And this proclama- 
tion is made not to one people, not to a few millions 
of bondmen in Egypt, but to the entire human race, 
to every son and daughter of her to whom in sin- 



MOSES. 67 

blighted Eden God whispered his first mysterious but 
glorious promise i " I saw an angel fly in the midst of 
heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to 
them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, 
and kindred, and tongue, and people." " If the son 
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." 

The blood was sprinkled, else had there been no pass- 
over. The destroyer found his way into every dwelling 
on the doors of which he saw not this crimson symbol. 
In vain had the lamb been slaughtered, in vain had 
they eaten his flesh with bitter herbs, had not the 
sprinkled blood saved them. So now and so forever. 
It is only by a personal application of that blood to 
the heart and conscience that the sinner is freed from 
his thraldom ; thus only may he hope to escape that 
terrible destruction which awaits the impenitent and 
the unbelieving. Christ our passover is sacrificed for 
us. Glorious truth. " It is the blood of sprinkling 
that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel !" 
Foolish and presumptuous as would have been the 
refusal of any Israelite to sprinkle his door-posts with 
the blood of the paschal lamb on that memorable 
night, infinitely more hazardous and more fatal is his 
conduct who turns away from that sacrificial blood 
of which that lamb's was an emblem and a type. 

Let us dwell a moment, in conclusion, on the issue 
of this wonderful night, a night the horror of which 
may be better conceived if we call to mind that, as 
the historian tells us, " the Egyptians were noted for 
the wild and frantic wailings with which they lamented 
their dead ; screaming women rush about with di- 
sheveled hair, troops of people assemble in tumult- 



68 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

uous commiseration around the house where a single 
corpse is laid out, and now every house and every 
family had its victim, "from the firstborn of Pha- 
raoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the 
captive in his dungeon." The king now sends in 
haste for Moses and Aaron. " Go," says he, " take 
your flocks and herds and be gone." The Egyptians 
also urged them to depart speedily, " Else," say they, 
"we be all dead men." Not, however, until the 
dawning of the morrow's sun did they depart. ■ 

The Israelites, as directed by God himself, de- 
manded — not borrowed, as it is improperly render- 
ed in our version — clothing, and gold, and silver 
from the Egyptians. Glad at the prospect of getting 
rid of them, they gave them such things as they re- 
quired, and thus made a small remuneration for their 
long years of unrequited toil. One thing yet re- 
mained. By tradition had been handed down from 
generation to generation the oath required from, his 
-brethren by Joseph upon his death-bed. " God," said 
he, "will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my 
bones from Egypt." Accordingly, the sepulcher in 
which his embalmed body was laid was opened, and 
as we learn from the statement made by Stephen in 
the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, they 
took with them also the remains of the twelve patri- 
archs. And when the last sand in the hour-glass of 
the four hundred and thirtieth year had run out, 
even the self-same day, says the sacred writer, it 
came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out 
from the land of Egypt. The rising sun looked 
down upon the gathering hosts, an army of freemen 



MOSES. 69 

emancipated from a long and dreary bondage. There 
were the hoary-headed fathers and the mothers bent 
by the infirmities of age, the young men rejoicing 
in their strength, and the little children mute with 
wonder at this strange procession. God's promise 
was fulfilled. He had broken the rod of the oppressor. 
They journey toward a land of which he had said, " I 
will give it you." The banners of the several tribes 
went before them, while from rank to rank and from 
heart to heart pealed the shout of freedom in loud 
hosannas to the Lord of Hosts. Tou say, God speed 
them on their journey. It is well said. To you, 
from the leader of that host, to you as of old, he said 
to one who wished them well, to you individually 
comes his invitation and mine : " We are journeying 
to the land of which God hath said, ' I will give it 
you,' come thou with us, and we will do thee good, for 
the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel." 



70 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTEE V. 

PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 

You remember that little girl to whom I intro- 
duced you at the beginning of this story on the 
banks of the River Nile, the elder sister of Moses 
and Aaron. Her name was Miriam, and I now 
bring her before yon again. She has reached the 
years of womanhood ; the Spirit of the. Lord is upon 
her, and she is called a prophetess, the first of her 
sex so far as we know upon whom God conferred 
this high honor. She was a teacher and a leader 
among the women of Israel as Moses and Aaron were 
among the men. It is her voice that we hear in the 
words of the song of triumph chanted partly by 
Moses and responsively by Miriam and her associ- 
ates. It is the oldest poem now extant in the world, 
having been composed and sung six hundred and 
forty-seven years previous to the date usually assigned 
to Homer, who is supposed to be the most ancient 
heathen poet. 

"We last saw the vast army of the emancipated 
Israelites rejoicing in their deliverance, and under 
the guidance of their heaven-appointed leader taking 
up their march for the promised land, the land of 
which God had said, "I will give it you." And how 
far was it from Egypt to the holy land ? Truly but 
a short distance. According to the historian Philo 
it was reckoned but a three days' journey, and it is 



MOSES. 71 

certain that the patriarch Jacob, on the invitation of 
his son Joseph, in his old age, traveled with appar- 
ent ease and in a short time from Canaan to the land 
of Egypt. So too in the time of the famine the 
brethren of Joseph made several rapid journeys be- 
tween the two conntries. We read of no especial 
difficulties in the way, and of no formidable obstacles 
to be encountered. How long then will it take God's 
chosen people, under his own guidance, to reach a 
land of which he had sworn to put them in posses- 
sion ? Man's wisdom has a ready answer for that 
question. He who brought them by his outstretched 
arm from the house of bondage can transplant them, 
with their flocks and herds, their wives and their little 
ones, rapidly and safely into the promised land. And 
that he will doubtless do it is man's ready inference 
from his knowledge of the character of God. Surely 
he will not send afflictions and trials upon the people 
of his choice ? He will lead them in a smooth path, 
by the side of still waters and of green pastures. 
But how far is this supposition from the truth ! How 
very different the facts ! What a lesson for God's 
people in every age ! They would be carried to the 
skies on flowery beds of ease, but God teaches them 
that the path to glory lies through conflicts and dis- 
tress, and that we must through much tribulation 
enter into the kingdom. By a circuitous route, 
through a vast howling wilderness, a burning desert, 
hungry and thirsty, with savage foes on every hand, 
the infinitely wise God is pleased for the long space 
of forty years to try his people. 

From Ramesis, probably another name for Goshen, 



72 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

they made their first day's march to a place called 
Succoth. Thence, on the second day, they journeyed 
to a place called Etham, on the edge of the great 
wilderness. By pursuing their course through that 
sandy region they would have been free from any 
fear of pursuit from the Egyptians. Their chariots, 
and even their horsemen, could scarcely follow them 
there. But now, by an express command from 
heaven, the direction of their route is altered. " In- 
stead of pressing rapidly onward, keeping the sea on 
their right hand, and so heading the gulf, they strike 
to the south, with the sea on their left, and deliber- 
ately encamp at no great distance from the shore, at 
a place called Pi-hahiroth, explained by some to mean 
the mouth or opening into the mountains."* This 
was done, as I have said, by the express direction of 
the Almighty to his servant Moses. He had pur- 
poses to subserve by it which did not enter into the 
imagination of his people, and which we shall see 
fully brought out in the sequel. 

We may pause a moment here and dwell upon the 
remarkable manifestations of his presence and guid- 
ance with which God favored his people. The Lord 
went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead 
them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give 
them light. As appears from the record, this super- 
natural cloudy pillar made its appearance soon after 
their departure from Egypt, probably at the close of 
the first day's journey. How long it continued with 
them is uncertain, some supposing that it disappeared 
cm the death of Aaron, when the pilgrims reached 

* Milman, 



MOSES. 73 

Mount Hor ; others that it was with them all through 
their journey ings, even down to the passage of the 
Jordan and their entrance upon the promised inher- 
itance. This latter opinion seems to be confirmed by 
the language of the sacred writer when he says, " He 
took not away the pillar of cloud by day nor the pil- 
lar of fire by night from before the people." It is 
the express declaration of Moses that the Lord was in 
this cloudy and fiery pillar. It was to them the she- 
kinah, or God's visible dwelling-place ; like that 
which afterward shone forth from between the cher- 
ubim of the mercy-seat, over the ark of God within 
the holy of holies. The account in the tenth chapter 
of first Corinthians abundantly confirms the opinion 
that He whose visible presence was thus made mani- 
fest was the second person in the Trinity, the Lord 
Jesus. Referring to this journeying through the wil- 
derness he says of the Israelites, " They drank of that 
spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock 
was Christ ;" and he exhorts the Corinthians not to 
tempt Christ as they tempted him. 

Besides making known to them the fact of 
God's special presence with his people, there were 
three distinct purposes subserved by this cloudy and 
fiery pillar. In the daytime it went before them as 
a guide, pointing out the way in which God would 
have them march. As it is written in the book of 
Numbers, " When the cloud was taken up from the 
tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel jour- 
neyed ; and in the place where the cloud abode, there 
the children of Israel pitched their tents." They 
knew not from one day to another how long their 



74 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

march would be nor in what direction. When the 
cloud rested they tarried in their encampment ; when 
it moved onward they followed it. A second pur- 
pose of this miraculous cloud was to give them light 
during the hours of darkness. "What was a mere dark 
pillar hung out in the heavens in the daytime became 
luminous as the shades of evening drew on, increas- 
ing in its brilliancy and giving light to all parts of 
the encampment, and to every one of the Lord's 
people. 

By day, along the astonished lands, 
The cloudy pillar guided slow ; 

By night Arabia's crimsoned sands 
Returned the fiery column's glow- 
In this connection your thoughts will readily ad- 
vert to Him who said, " I am the light of the world ;" 
and to that remarkable declaration of the revelator 
when describing the new Jerusalem : " The city had 
no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in 
it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb 
is the light thereof." A third purpose of this cloudy 
pillar is distinctly referred to by the Apostle Paul in 
another of the many instances in which the writings 
of the New Testament explain those of the Old. He 
says, " Our fathers were under the cloud, and were 
all baptized unto Moses in the cloud." The cloud, 
then, was a shadow from the scorching rays of the 
sun in that terrible desert, and by its distillation of 
water cooled the atmosphere, sprinkling, or as Paul 
has it, baptizing the immense multitude, and fur- 
nishing refreshment for themselves and their cattle. 
The poet from whom I have just quoted alludes beau- 



MOSES. 75 

tifully to this threefold purpose of the cloudy pillar 
in language which I trust will find a reponsive echo 
in our hearts. Addressing Him who manifested his 
presence in the wilderness, he says : 

Thus present still, though now unseen, 

. When brightly shines the prosperous day, 

Be thoughts of thee a cloudy screen, 

To temper the deceitful ray. 
And 0, when gathers on our path, 

In shade and storm, the frequent night, 
Be thou long-suffering, slow to wrath, 

A burning and a shining light. 

And now the vast army of the Israelites have fin- 
ished their third day's march. The cloud stands still. 
The usual preparations are made for their encamp- 
ment. It is a dreary place ; rough and rugged are 
the mountain barriers on their right hand and on 
their left, and directly before them roll the dashing 
waters of the Red Sea. But the cloud of the divine 
presence is hanging there in the firmament. The 
aged and the infirm, wearied with their day's march, 
have retired to rest, and the little ones are sleeping 
sweetly on the couches prepared by maternal love. 
"What meaneth now this anxious gaze, ye men of Is- 
rael ? what are these half-suppressed murmurings ? 
That fiery pillar is moving slowly from the front to 
the rear of the encampment. It passes over the en- 
tire host, and well may Israel marvel and gaze upon 
it with astonishment. Does it portend that God is 
about to forsake his people ? or means it that they are 
now, at this dead hour of the night, to resume their 
march and retrace their steps ? 



76 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS, 

It now hangs quietly over the rear of the encamp- 
ment, still shedding upon God's people its peculiar 
luster, and presenting an impenetrable cloud of dark- 
ness to their enemies. Their enemies? Even so. 
The Egyptian king has recovered from his panic, 
has already forgotten the terrible lessons taught him 
by the God of the Hebrews^ and with all his horse- 
men and chariots of war is in hot pursuit of his 
former bondmen. Already borne upon the breeze, 
the sound of the approaching foe, the clangor of the 
rumbling chariots, and the war-cry of the Egyptians 
have reached the ears of the watchful men of Israel. 
Consternation spreads rapidly through the encamp- 
ment. Fear sits on every countenance. The wail- 
ing cry, " They come, they come !" arouses the old 
man from his slumber and terrifies the half-awakened 
child. And what is to be done? Neither on the 
right hand or the left is there any way of escape, nor 
bridge nor boat by which to cross the roaring sea. 
Shall they stand still, await the foe, and give him 
battle, or shall they turn back and meet him in 
combat ? 

Alas ! Pharaoh's hosts are men of war, well 
armed, valiant, and eager for the blood of the fugi- 
tives. The Israelites, on the other hand, have no 
weapons, and if they had they know not how to use 
them. They are timid, and, as might be inferred 
from their long degradation in the house of bondage, 
cowardly. But the pillar of fire hangs there above 
their heads, steadily shedding its glorious rays upon 
the camp. It is the symbol of the presence of the 
God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. They 



MOSES. 77 

seem not, however, to see the pillar of fire ; they have 
already forgotten the wonderful works of the Lord, 
and are ready to abandon themselves to utter despair. 
And they said unto Moses, " Because there were no 
graves in Egypt hast thou taken us away to die in 
the wilderness ?" No graves in Egypt ? what a bit- 
ter mockery. Why Egypt had been the scene of 
affliction, and tears, and agony to themselves and 
their fathers four hundred and thirty years, but now 
all these sorrows are forgotten in view of the imme- 
diate death which apparently awaits them. " Where- 
fore," they ask again, " wherefore hast thou dealt 
thus with us to carry us forth out of Egypt ? " As if 
they had not voluntarily and gladly made their 
escape, they talk as if Moses had brought them away 
against their will. Nay, they even assert that it was 
not by their own consent that they forsook the land 
of the oppressor. " Is not this the word that we did 
tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may 
serve the Egyptians ? For it had been better for us 
to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the 
wilderness." 

And how does Moses meet these cruel taunts, this 
harsh and false accusation? He might have re- 
torted in language of scathing indignation; with 
tenfold bitterness he might have hurled back the 
ungenerous charge. Calm, serene, and dignified, 
he listens to their querulous complainings. He does 
not even attempt to stir them up to meet the foe like 
men or to infuse into their hearts courage. In reply 
to their avowed preference for their Egyptian thral- 
dom, he might have told them with one of a later 



78 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

age, that in his judgment a day, an hour of virtuous 
liberty is worth a whole eternity of bondage. But 
hear his reply : " Fear not ; stand still and see the 
salvation of the Lord." A more noble instance of 
meekness and moral courage, of calm deliberate trust 
and confidence in God, this world has never wit- 
nessed. It seems from the record that Moses him- 
self was as ignorant as they as to the manner in 
which God would bring his people out of this per- 
plexing difficulty. He had simply confidence in 
Him who had spoken from the burning bush, and 
whose visible glory hung there in the fiery cloud. 
" Stand still," says he, " and see the salvation of the 
Lord, for the Lord shall fight for you." 

Moses no doubt lifted up his heart in prayer to the 
Holy One. I say his hearty for there is no mention 
of any language used by him on the occasion, and 
this is in accordance with the experience of all who 
have been placed in circumstances of similar perplex- 
ity. Trouble and grief find few words in which to 
express themselves ; but groanings which cannot be 
uttered are eloquent in the ears of the Lord ; they 
speak trumpet-tongued at the throne of grace. No 
accents flow, no words ascend; all utterances fail 
there; but God himself comprehends and answers 
silent prayer. And this was the answer : " Speak 
unto the children of Israel that they go forward." 
Forward! Thence onward the watchword and the 
rallying cry of God's Israel in all ages and under all 
circumstances. Faint yet pursuing, press toward the 
mark ; but the sea is there. Nothing but destruction 
swift and remediless can be expected from obedience 



MOSES. 79 

to this command ! True according to man's reason- 
ing, and to what we call common sense. But God 
had said it, and it is man's duty simply to obey his 
voice and leave the result with him. He never yet 
required anything of his creatures without giving, 
with the requirement, all the ability needed. 

With what perfect simplicity the sacred writer 
relates the stupendous miracle which followed ! No 
pompous rhetoric, no gaudy embellishment, not a syl- 
lable calculated to excite the astonishment of the 
reader is found upon his page. He simply tells us 
that, by the direction of the Almighty, Moses stretched 
out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused the 
sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, 
and made the sea dry land, and the waters were di- 
vided. Mark this language. Moses stretched out 
his hand, but the Lord divided the waters. Is it 
incredible ? So the skeptic tells us, and so it would 
be had this work been attributed to Moses merely. 
But if we admit that there is a being who has all 
power in heaven and in earth, a Grod who made the 
sea as well as the dry land, where is the difficulty, 
and of what value the objection? Is anything too 
hard for the Lord ? Much difference of opinion ex- 
ists, there have been many speculations, as to the pre- 
cise point where the waters of the sea were divided, 
and as to the minor details of this miracle. The fact 
itself rests upon authority that cannot be overthrown. 
Not only have we the narrative of the event in the 
pages of the sacred historian, but the poetry of the 
Jewish people from the earliest period is filled with 
allusions to the miraculous passage ol the Red Sea 



80 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

The triumphant song of Moses and Miriam which I 
have just referred to has been with the Jewish peo- 
ple from that day to this. It has been in their pos- 
session as composed and sung on that occasion. The 
psalmist, David, dwells upon the subject in the lofti- 
est strains of poetry, and local tradition among the 
surrounding nations, ignorant though they be of the 
Hebrews' God, preserves memorials of the wonderful 
event. 

Diodorus Siculus states as a tradition current in 
his day that once the channel of the gulf became dry, 
and that afterward an extraordinary tide came in and 
restored the whole channel to its former state. 
" Wherever," says Niebuhr, " you ask an Arab where 
the Egyptians were drowned, he points to the part 
of the shore where you are standing. There is one 
bay, however, where in the roaring of the waters 
they pretend to hear the cries and wailings of the 
ghosts of Pharaoh's army." 

To return to the narrative. Slowly the hours of 
the night wore away, the dawn of day is not yet vis- 
ible, and the two leaders of Israel at the head of the 
immense column commence their march. They 
enter upon the margin of the sea ; contrary to all 
natural laws, the fluid waters stand erect like crystal 
walls on either hand. The infirm, the aged, feeble 
women and prattling childhood follow. All night 
long the immense host wind onward along the bed 
of the oozy deep, while still shines upon them the 
fiery pillar of God's presence. And now the fest 
follower has reached the opposite shore, and they 
understand what he meant by the mysterious direc- 



MOSES. 81 

tion, " Go forward." And so precisely in all tha 
history of tlie Church of God, and in the experience 
of every individual member of that Church. When, 
in obedience to his word, in defiance of difficulty and 
opposition, in adversity, in poverty, in affliction, they 
have gone forward, strangely has he opened the way ; 
the crooked has been made straight and the rough 
places plain, and the glory of the Lord has been re- 
vealed. The promised land seems yet afar off; a 
waste howling wilderness is still to be traversed. 
What then ? He hath brought us thus far in safety, 
though, in accordance with his own promise, in a 
way that we knew not. Even now may God's Israel 
sing: 

" Thine arm hath safely brought us 
A way no more expected, 
Than when thy sheep passed through the deep 
By crystal walls protected ; 
Thy glory was our rearward, 
Thy hand our lines did cover, 
And we, even we, have crossed the sea, 
And passed triumphant over." 

But are they yet in safety from their pursuers? 
It is the morning watch, and by the glimmering day- 
light the Egyptians perceive the strange route they 
had taken. In an instant the command is given to 
follow. The war chariots are made ready, and the 
entire Egyptian host are in hot pursuit. While in 
the midst of this passage it is smid the Lord looked 
upon them through the pillar of fire and cloud and 
troubled them, and took off their chariot wheels that 
they drave them heavily. The meaning seems to be, 
that God terrified them by the fiery appearance of 



82 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

the cloud ; that the horses rushed madly one upon 
another, breaking the chariots and throwing the 
whole army into confusion. A terrible tempest en- 
sued, thus vividly described by the Psalmist : " The 
clouds poured out water, the skies sent out a sound, 
thine arrows also went abroad. The voice of thy 
thunder was in the heavens, thy lightnings lightened 
the world, the earth also trembled and shook." Thus 
terrified and panic-stricken, in the midst of the pas- 
sage, they said : " Let us flee from the face of Israel, 
for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians." 
But alas for the men of Egypt ! It is too late to turn 
back ; their cup is full, and God's day of vengeance 
has overtaken them. Look there upon the opposite 
bank of the sea, and behold that Moses whom they 
had ridiculed and despised and persecuted. He 
waves above his head that wonder-working rod, and 
lo ! the returning waters with overwhelming force 
engulf the entire Egyptian host. Their shrieks of 
agony pierce the clouds ; but like a living monster 
the sea folds them in its cold embrace, and they per- 
ish there, not one escaping to tell the dreadful story. 
Then sang Moses and the children of Israel a song 
unto the Lord, and Miriam and the women with in- 
struments of music joined in the chorus : " Sing ye to 
the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously : the horse 
and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. Pharaoh's 
chariots and his hmi and his chosen captains are 
drowned in the Eed Sea. The enemy said I will 
pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; my 
lust shall be satisfied upon them ; I will draw my 
sword, mine hand shall destroy them. But thy right 



MOSES. 83 

hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power : thy right 
hand hath dashed in pieces the enemy. With the 
blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered to- 
gether, the floods stood upright as a heap, and the 
depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. Thou 
didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: 
they sank as lead in the mighty waters." 

In concluding this part of our story I would fix 
your minds on two thoughts, both found in the beau- 
tiful ode from which I have already so largely quoted. 
The one is an acknowledgment of the attributes and 
perfections of Jehovah ; the other an act of self-con- 
secration to him and to his service. Listen to the 
lofty strain in which the Israelites acknowledge God, 
and let it find a responsive echo in our own hearts : 
" Who is like unto thee, O Lord ; glorious in holi- 
ness, fearful in praises, doing wonders ? " That done 
from the heart, it will be easy for us to join with 
them in consecrating all we have to him from whom 
cometh every good gift. Then shall we say from our 
hearts, " The Lord is my strength and my song, and 
he is become my salvation. He is my God, and I 
will glorify him ; my father's God and I will exalt 
him." 



84 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTERS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MANNA. 

In our last chapter we heard the exulting pean of 
Israel's triumphant song of praise to the God of their 
fathers. Now we must listen to their murmurings 
and repinings, and see them in a totally different 
aspect. We are brought now to consider what may- 
be deemed, on many accounts, the most stupendous 
miracle recorded in the book of God. Previous to 
entering directly upon the subject, in order to pre- 
serve the continuity of the narrative, let us trace the 
Israelites for a few days after the memorable passage 
of the Red Sea. 

Safely landed on the opposite shore, the aged and 
the infirm, the women and the little children, not one 
missing, they exulted in the manifested goodness of 
God, and ascribed to him the glory of their deliver- 
ance. And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the 
sea-shore. The bodies of their enemies were thrown 
up on the dry land, from which they doubtless pro- 
cured a mass of wealth of which we read in their 
future history, as well as armor offensive and defens- 
ive in which their strong men equipped themselves. 

After sufficient time for rest and refreshment the 
order is given for their onward march. They take 
their departure again into the wilderness. They jour- 
ney on for three successive days ; the symbol of God's 
presence, the fiery-cloudy pillar still accompanying 



MOSES. 85 

them. But in that dreary desert they find no water. 
They thirst. Near the close of the third day's march, 
however, the news flies from one end of the host 
to the other, " "Water is at hand ! " But alas, what a 
terrible disappointment! As they rushed to slake 
their burning lips in the stream they found it, un- 
like the soft and genial waters of the Nile, so 
bitter that they could not drink it. Then there 
arose from the vast multitude loud murmurings 
against the leaders ; God's past goodness is forgotten ; 
the symbol of his presence in the cloudy pillar is un- 
heeded. What shall we drink ? is the one universal 
cry. As some palliation of their conduct on this 
occasion, let us remember that they were not, like 
military troops, taught and trained to endure priva- 
tions with patience. They were an untutored host 
of ignorant men. They had with them their aged 
and infirm parents, their mothers and wives and little 
children. They had journeyed on foot over a burn- 
ing desert for three successive days without water. 
And they called the name of that place Marah, 
which means bitterness. 

Very frequent are the allusions of the sacred writ- 
ers to these bitter waters where, hungry and thirsty, 
their souls fainted in them. When Naomi returned 
to her own land a desolate and bereaved widow, 
" Call me," said she, " call me no more Naomi, but 
call me Mara, for the Lord hath dealt very bitterly 
with me." It is remarkable, too, that from this fact, 
even at this distant day, we are enabled with a good 
degree of accuracy to fix upon the precise point 
where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, and to trace 



86 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

their route during the journey ings of the first three 
days thereafter. On the coast between Suez and 
Sinai, according to the testimony of Burckhardt, con- 
firmed by other travelers, there is among the rocks 
at the present day a well of which the water is so 
bitter that even camels refuse to taste it. It is added 
that there is no other bitter water on the whole coast. 
If, then, we fix upon this as the true site of the place 
called Marah, which by the natives is called Wady- 
Amarah, there is little difficulty in ascertaining the 
probable point where the waters of the Red Sea were 
divided for their miraculous passage. It is but to 
make a reasonable allowance for the length of their 
three days' journeyings, and this will bring us back 
to a projecting headland which bears the name of 
Has Mousa, or the Cape of Moses, the name in all 
probability given to it in commemoration of this 
event, and thus preserved among the natives. 

And now the people murmur against Moses, say- 
ing, "What shall we drink? In answer to his serv- 
ant's prayer God directs him by some special moni- 
tion or suggestion to cast into the water a peculiar 
kind of tree, by means of which the waters were made 
sweet and the Israelites slake their raging thirst. It 
is not to be supposed that there was any healing vir- 
tue in the tree thus thrown into the water. It was 
the miraculous intervention of the Almighty that 
made the bitter water sweet, just as it was his power 
that divided the Red Sea, although it pleased him to 
make use of a little rod in the hand of Moses as an 
intermediate agency. 

After their departure from Marah their next rest- 



MOSES. 87 

ing-place appears to have been a valley called Elim, 
a beautiful spot abounding in streams and rivulets 
and fruit-bearing trees. " There were there," says 
Moses, " twelve wells of water and threescore and 
ten palm-trees." Of this tree very frequent mention 
is made in the Scriptures. It is the emblem of pa- 
tience, fruitfulness, and victory. It is said of the 
righteous, " They shall flourish like the palm-tree." 
They were branches of the palm-tree that the multi- 
tude took when they went forth to meet the Saviour 
and cried " Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord." In token of their having gained 
the final victory, John tells us the great multitude 
whose robes were made white had palms or branches 
of this tree in their hands. Taking into the account 
its beautiful form, its graceful foliage, and its refresh- 
ing fruit, it is by far the most important and valua- 
ble vegetable production of the eastern world. A 
modern traveler gives the following account of the 
present aspect of this beautiful valley, this vale of 
Elim, in which the Israelites were now encamped: 
"I saw," says he, "no more than nine of the twelve 
wells that are mentioned by Moses, the other three 
being filled up by those drifts of sand which are com- 
mon in Arabia. Yet this loss is amply made up by 
the great increase of the palm-trees, the seventy hav- 
ing propagated themselves into more than two thou- 
sand. Under the shade of these trees is the Hamman 
Mousa, or Bath of Moses, which the inhabitants have 
in great esteem and veneration, telling us that it was 
here where the household of Moses was encamped." 
How long the Israelites tarried in this lovely spot 



88 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

is uncertain, as are also the names of several resting- 
places until they reached a place called Zin, on the 
fifteenth day of the second month after their depart- 
ure from Egypt. And here it was that first occurred 
the remarkable event commemorated in the Gospel, 
" Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness ;" the 
most stupendous miracle recorded in the Bible. The 
immediate occasion of this display of the divine pow- 
er and goodness was the fact that the provisions 
brought by the Israelites from the land of Egypt 
were exhausted. Two millions of people were now 
in the midst of a barren desert, brought there indeed 
by the direct agency of the Sovereign of the universe, 
with special manifestations of his presence by day 
and by night ; and yet it is not wonderful if gloomy 
apprehensions filled their minds as the prospect be- 
fore them was that of death by starvation. 

And what ought they to have done? We can 
readily answer that question. They ought to have 
trusted in the goodness and in the power of that God 
whose arm had been so repeatedly stretched out for 
their deliverance in the land of Egypt ; w^hose wonder- 
working power had been made so visible in the midst 
of the raging waters of the sea ; whose manifested glory 
hung there day and night in mid heaven. So we say 
it ought to have been, and in thus saying do we not, 
some of us at least, pass judgment upon our own con- 
duct when we too have distrusted this same God, and 
given way to doubts, and fears, and murmurings ? 
Like them, we also are too prone to forget the past 
when clouds hang upon the present and spread their 
gloom over the future. With the Psalmist I think 



MOSES. 89 

we may say with reference to our own conduct, and 
in allusion to these events, " We have sinned with 
our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have 
done wickedly. Our fathers understood not thy 
wonders in Egypt ; they remembered not the multi- 
tude of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, 
even at the Red Sea. They soon forgat his works, 
they waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly 
in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert." 

As on former occasions of perplexity and distress, 
the Israelites pour out their complaints upon the 
head of Moses, their meek and modest leader, as if 
upon him devolved all the responsibility, as if in- 
deed he had brought them forth from Egypt against 
their will. " Would to God we had died by the hand 
of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the 
fleshpots and when we did eat bread to the full ; for 
ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill 
this whole assembly with hunger." To these ungen- 
erous and cruel charges we hear not one harsh word 
in reply from Moses. He simply reminds them that 
their murmurings are not against him and his brother 
Aaron, but against God ; and in implicit confidence 
in his goodness and power, he declares unto them as 
at the Red Sea, "In the morning ye shall see the 
glory of the Lord." And now again, instead of tak- 
ing sudden vengeance for their ingratitude and rebell- 
ion, God announces to his servant his intention to 
satisfy the wants of this immense multitude. " Be- 
hold," says he, " I will rain bread from heaven for 
you." • That night a remarkable supply of quails 
came up, as is supposed, from the Arabian Gulf, across 



90 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

which they are frequently known to fly in great num- 
bers. There appears to have been an immense quan- 
tity of this delicious food, which we may well suppose 
the Israelites were not slow in appropriating to ap- 
pease their hunger. To this event the Psalmist evi- 
dently alludes, " He rained flesh upon them as the 
dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea." 

The dawning of the morrow revealed, even as 
Moses had predicted, the glory of the Lord. In 
every direction around the vast encampment there 
lay upon the ground a substance to which they gave 
the name of manna, " and this," said Moses, " is the 
bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." The 
reality of this miracle has been gravely questioned by 
some who even pretend to be believers in the Bible. 
They do not indeed dispute the fact that the Israel- 
ites found food there in the wilderness, but it seems 
more natural to them to leave the direct agency of 
the Almighty out of the question, and to imagine 
that a resinous gum which exudes from the thorns of 
the tamarisk-tree may have been the manna of which 
Moses speaks. It is true there is such a gum, and it 
is gathered by the Arabs even to this day ; but there 
is scarcely one particular in which it resembles de- 
scriptions given of the manna by the sacred writers. 

That gum is found only at particular seasons of the 
year, in limited quantities, and of course in the 
neighborhood of the trees which produce it. The 
manna was found at all seasons in great abundance, 
and everywhere in the neighborhood of the Israelites' 
encampments. Indeed, it requires a greater stretch 
of credulity to account for the statements of the 



MOSES. 91 

sacred writer by referring the matter to mere natural 
causes, than to receive the declaration, put by Moses 
into the lips of the Holy One, " Behold, I will rain 
bread from heaven for you," and I think it will 
be granted by all as we proceed, that as no greater 
miracle was ever wrought by the great Supreme, 
so no event that has happened in past ages is more 
strongly corroborated, or rests upon better evidence 
of its reality. 

But wherein consisted the greatness of this miracle ? 
Why was it looked upon by our fathers in the desert 
as so wonderful a manifestation of the power and 
goodness of God? Why does the infidel of the 
present day pretend to doubt whether the whole nar- 
rative be not a fictitious tale of a fertile imagination ? 
Nay, why is it that professing believers in the authen- 
ticity of the Mosaic record, some of them indeed as- 
suming to be interpreters of the Bible, seek to explain 
away the mystery and resolve it all into what it 
pleases them to style natural causes. Is there any 
such thing as nature independent of God ? Or what 
mean we by nature but God at work % True. But 
this account of bread falling from heaven day after 
day, in such quantities, for so many years, contradicts 
all our experience. Most certainly it does. But 
suppose now that it did not contradict your experi- 
ence ; suppose that you had never seen bread produced 
in any other way than from manna fresh gathered in 
the morning, ground in a mill, and baked in a rudely 
constructed oven ? What then ? Why then, say you, 
the account given by Moses would be divested of its 
miraculous character ; and you say truly ; that is, it 



92 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTERS. 

would be thus divested so far as you are con- 
cerned. 

Again, I may ask, on this supposition, would the 
direct agency of God be any the less real because 
your experience squares precisely with the facts stated 
in the Bible ? Will you limit the Omnipotent and 
hedge God in by your experience? Will you say 
unto him, " Thus far but no further I" Let us for a 
moment, in imagination, go back to the period to 
which our subject refers, or rather say, a quarter of a 
century after that first morning when the Israelites 
saw upon the face of the wilderness a small round 
thing, as small as the hoar frost upon the ground, and 
they said one to another, "It is manna," for they wist 
not what it was ; I say, a quarter of a century after 
that morning. Here is a young man who was born 
there in the desert. His experience goes not back to 
the time of his ancestors in Egypt ; he never saw a 
field of wheat, nor heard the joyous shout of harvest 
when the crop has been gathered into the garner. 
Suppose you show him what to you is a very insignif- 
icant sight, a farmer scattering seed broadcast upon 
a plowed field. Tou tell him that seed will rot 
there and then spring to life, and thence in a few 
months a plenteous supply of food will be gathered. 
Does it interfere at all with the truth of your asser- 
tion because he says it is contrary to his experience ? 
But let us talk with this young Israelite about his 
daily bread. Whence comes it? He has a ready 
answer. "We gather it in the desert around the 
camp. We have done so ever since I can remember. 
I assisted to gather it yesterday. We found a fresh 



MOSES. 93 

supply this morning, and it will be there again to- 
morrow." He talks about it, you perceive, as a matter 
of course, just as that farmer talks about the harvest 
of last year. And now, if this imaginary Israelite is 
tainted with what I can find no better name to call 
than infidel philosophy, what answer will he give me 
when I ask, Whence comes that manna which you 
gather in the desert ; who sends it there ? 

There is rank atheism in thus exalting what, 
in man's philosophy, is called nature, above the 
God of nature. His hand is as visible in the germi- 
nating grain bursting through the clod upon which 
we gaze with such indifference, as it was in the descent 
of manna in the wilderness. Surely, to Him who is 
almighty it was as easy to send food directly to his 
people as it is to send it through his own intervening 
agencies of sunshine and genial dews and fertilizing 
showers. Thus much for the argument against mira- 
cles drawn from man's limited experience. 

Turn we then to the record. And first, there are 
several particulars that deserve notice relative to the 
nature of this miracle. Unlike all others of which we 
read in the Bible, it was not a display of Almighty 
power that appeared for a season merely. The glory 
of God at the burning bush was momentary. The su- 
pernatural darkness in the land of Egypt lasted com- 
paratively a little while ; the waters of the Red Sea 
stood up like crystal walls for a few hours only and 
then flowed back into their wonted channel ; the sun 
stood still at the voice of Joshua, but soon began 
again his untiring course. Here is a display of om- 
nipotent goodness that appeared not for an hour nor 



94 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

a day nor a week, but for forty successive years. In 
all the wanderings of God's people during tliat long 
period, even while one generation died and was suc- 
ceeded by another on each successive morning, on six 
days of every week the manna fell and the wants of 
the people were satisfied. It mattered not how long 
was the day's march, nor for what length of time, nor 
where they encamped ; whether by the grateful oasis 
in the shade of the towering palm-trees in scenes of 
verdant loveliness, amid sterile rocks or burning sands, 
or in the dreary desolations around Mount Sinai, the 
glory of God appeared in bread from heaven. 

During all that time it fell in sufficient quanti- 
ties to satisfy the wants of this immense number of 
people, but it fed them not without labor on their 
part. Every morning, before the sun reached his 
noonday strength, each head of a family went forth 
and collected a sufficiency for the day's supply of his 
household. That supply was an omer, as it is called, 
which was a measure of about three quarts, and it is 
said that he that gathered much had nothing over, 
and he that gathered little had no lack, because, as I 
suppose, he gathered in proportion to the number of 
his family ; or it may mean that if any one collected 
more than a sufficiency for his own household the 
surplus went to those who from any cause had been 
unable to supply themselves. But after the manna 
had been collected it was not fit for food until it had 
been prepared. It had to be ground and baked. 
God could have supplied them just as easily with food 
ready prepared. He might have sent it into every 
household and placed it upon every table, but th&t 



MOSES. 95 

here, as everywhere else, he would teach man to be a 
co-worker with himself and manifest his regard for 
labor. It is in direct opposition to his will, as revealed 
in the Bible and in all his providential dispensations, 
that man should eat the bread of idleness ; and he who 
supposes that he can be happy or enjoy life, to say 
nothing of enjoying God, and live a life of idleness, 
will find himself most grievously mistaken. It is 
the hand of the diligent that maketh rich, rich not 
in the abundance of this world's goods merely, but 
rich in enjoyment, rich in a consciousness of the smiles 
of heaven, rich toward God. 

A wonderful declaration is that of the Redeemer 
of mankind, which we may ponder in our hearts, 
"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." We 
may make our own estimate of the amount of food 
rained down from heaven which sufficed for so vast 
a multitude for so long a time, and likewise con- 
sider some other facts in this connection which 
tend still further to attest the hand of God. And 
first, though the manna fell all around the encamp- 
ment of the Israelites, it fell .no where else. They 
journeyed to-day in one direction, to-morrow in an- 
other ; they tarried sometimes for weeks in one spot ; 
at the base of Mount Sinai they remained a whole 
year, and in other places they rested only for a night ; 
but the bread from heaven followed them, and afforded 
them every morning a visible manifestation of the 
bountiful goodness of Him whose glory hung in the 
pillar of cloud by day and in the pillar of fire by 
night. And what was the lesson God taught them 
and is teaching us by the fact that the manna fell 



96 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

only from day to day ? Could they not have gathered 
enough in a few hours to last for several days, for a 
week or a month ? In opposition to the direction of 
Moses, some of them thought they would do this. 
They gathered more than sufficed for their daily 
wants, but when the morrow's sun arose they looked 
upon it, and behold it had bred worms and stank ; it 
had become not only worthless but offensive. 

The lesson God designed by this was that of 
their entire and unceasing dependence upon him. 
He could as easily have sent in an hour enough for a 
month or a year; as easily as to have scattered it 
upon the earth, he could have sent it ground and 
baked upon their tables. But he chose to do other- 
wise, teaching them, as I have observed, first, that 
their own industry must co-operate with his bounty ; 
and secondly, that in all their efforts they must put 
their entire trust in him. Thus every morning there 
was cause for devout expressions of thankfulness; 
and though they gathered the manna, they could 
not help being reminded of the fact that it was 
his gift. Beautifully has the poet expressed the 
situation and the duty of the Israelites on this 
occasion in language specially appropriate to God's 
Israel at the present day : 

" Round each habitation hovering, 

See the cloud and fire appear, 
For a glory and a covering, 

Showing that the Lord is near. 
He who gives us daily manna, 

He who listens when we cry, 
Let him hear the loud hosanna 

Rising to his throne on high. 



MOSES. 97 

So is it with ourselves. He hath taught us to 
repeat every morning the simple petition, " Give us 
this day our daily bread," at the same time to pursue 
with diligence that business in which his providence 
has placed us. 

Let us now turn our thoughts a moment to a 
still more remarkable feature in this miracle. Let 
me introduce it in the words of the sacred histo- 
rian : " And it came to pass on the sixth day they 
gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one 
man, and all the rulers of the congregation came and 
told Moses." It seems that on this day the supply 
had been twice as great as on any day previous ; and 
the rulers, that is, the subordinate officers, came to 
Moses and informed him of the fact that so large a sur- 
plus had been gathered. The experiment had been 
made already, and they had found that the manna 
would not keep till the second day. What, therefore, 
is to be done? Moses, instructed from on high, is 
ready with his answer. " To-morrow," says he, " is 
the Sabbath of the Lord, the day of rest ; ye will not 
find the manna in the field on that day. A double 
quantity falls on this the sixth day of the week, a 
portion of which will keep for the morrow. And so 
it was. Some of the people, it is said, went out to 
gather upon the seventh day, but they found none. 
And so it was during the entire period of their jour- 
neyings in the desert. No manna fell upon the Sab- 
bath, and a double portion on the day preceding. 

Observe here that this strict observance of a day 
of rest occurs previous to the giving of the law from 
Mount Sinai. Moses says not to-morrow will be, but 



98 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

to-morrow is the Sabbath of the Lord, indicating that 
it was not now mentioned for the first time, although 
it is very likely that during their long bondage in 
Egypt the sanctity of the day had been overlooked. 
From all the facts that can be gathered from the 
writings of Moses, the Sabbath seems to have been 
an ordinance of the Almighty from the beginning. 
"When he rested from his labor it is said he blessed the 
Sabbath day and hallowed it ; and yon cannot fail, I 
think, to have been struck with the peculiarity in 
which is worded the fourth of the commandments 
written afterward upon tablets of stone by the finger 
of the Almighty. All the others are couched in the 
language of express injunction or prohibition. Thou 
shalt do this, thou shalt not do that ; but the com- 
mand relative to a weekly day of rest reads, " Re- 
member the Sabbath day to keep itJholy." Remem- 
ber, as if it had been long previously established, and 
by no means now instituted for the first time. 

Let us now go, in imagination, some hundreds of 
years after the last Israelite Who tasted manna in the 
wilderness had been gathered to his fathers ; let us go 
to that holy land toward which they were now jour- 
neying. Let us take with us a guide abundantly 
competent to give us all needful information. See 
you there that inner temple? It is called the sanc- 
tuary. There the descendants of these wanderers in 
the desert worship the God of their fathers* But 
there is a vail that separates the tabernacle from a 
portion known by the dread appellation, the Holy of 
Holies. What is behind that dark curtain? Listen 
to our guide ; perhaps you will recognize him when 



MOSES. 99 

you hear his voice. Into that Holy of Holies enters 
the high priest alone, and that only once a year, and 
that not without blood, which he offers for himself and 
for the errors of the people. Ah, then we may not 
lift that curtain ? We may, for, look you, it is rent 
asunder from the top to the bottom. Do you remem- 
ber when it was thus rent asunder? And now we 
are within the vail. There is the mercy-seat, over- 
shadowed by the golden cherubim ; and there that 
holy thing, the ark of the covenant. "Would you 
know what is within that ark ? Paul, who has been 
our guide, shall tell you. " There," says he, " is 
Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the cove- 
nant, and the golden pot that had manna." Manna ! 
Even so. It was laid up there by command of Moses, 
nay, rather by the direction of the God of Moses ; 
" for this," said he, " is the thing which the Lord 
commanded : Fill an omer of it to be kept for your 
generation, that is, for succeeding ages, that they may 
see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilder- 
ness when I brought you forth from the land of 
Egypt." And thus onward from one generation to 
another was kept alive the memory of this stupendous 
miracle. Even down to the time of Christ the entire 
Jewish people were as well convinced of the reality 
of this event as though they had themselves fed upon 
the manna in the wilderness. 

Shall we make a spiritual application of this sub- 
ject, and find out an interpretation of the meaning 
of this wonderful display of God's power and good- 
ness ? It is done already to our hands. We need 
have no apprehension that in this matter we shall 



100 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

be misled by imaginary or fanciful interpretations. 
Listen to the words of the Saviour: "Our fathers 
did eat manna in the desert." This language was 
addressed to the great Teacher when he wrought the 
miracle of feeding the five thousand with a few loaves 
and fishes. It was as if they had said, You have in- 
deed done a wonderful work, but what is it in com- 
parison with the miracle of Moses, when the vast 
multitude of our ancestors were fed so long a time 
with bread from heaven ? In reply, Jesus reminds 
them that it was not Moses, but their heavenly father 
who wrought that miracle: "Yerily, verily, I say 
unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heav- 
en, but my Father giveth you the true bread from 
heaven." He goes on then with great clearness to 
explain himself, and to tell us what he means by bread 
from heaven, of which the manna was a type. " Your 
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead ; 
that is, it neither preserved their temporal life nor 
gave them assurance of life eternal. " But there is 
bread which cometh down from heaven which if any 
man eat he shall live forever." Is that a strange 
saying ? Beyond a doubt so it seemed to them who 
heard it from his lips, and as they listened, still more 
wonderful was his language : " I am that bread of 
life ! I am the living bread which came down from 
heaven ; if any man eat of this bread he shall live 
forever." My friends, do we understand this lan- 
guage of the Saviour, or like the unbelieving Jews 
who heard him do we ask, " How can this man give 
us his flesh to eat ? " Truly, as he himself declared, 
" the flesh profiteth nothing ; it is the spirit that quick- 



MOSES. 101 

eneth ; and the words that I speak unto yon," that is, 
the doctrines which I teach, " they are spirit and they 
are life." And so many of ns have found them ; 
the interpretation of the Saviour's language is to us 
perfectly easy, and in us hath been fulfilled the 
promise, " To him that overcometh will I give to eat 
of the hidden manna." Need we be reminded that as 
the bread from heaven fell daily in the desert, so we 
also need fresh manna every morning. Yesterday's 
supply will not answer for to-day, nor may we 
hoard it up for future use. The morrow may take 
heed for itself. The prayer is, and it refers not merely 
to sustenance for the present life, " Give us this day 
our daily bread ;" and when the Saviour, more fully 
explaining himself, said unto them, " the bread of 
God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth 
life unto the world," then said they unto him, " Lord, 
evermore give us this bread." Go ye and do like- 
wise. 



102 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ROCK OF HOREB. 

Lsr our last we took with us a guide or interpreter 
who explained some of the myteries within the vail 
of the sanctuary. He told us what that was in a 
golden vessel within the ark of the covenant. It 
was some of the manna which fell in the desert, there 
preserved from generation to generation as a memo- 
rial of the miracle, and a voucher for the truth of the 
Mosaic record. I say, as a memorial of the mira- 
cle ; for had the manna been, as some contend, a 
mere natural product found in the wilderness, it 
had been, to say the least, a piece of folly so care- 
fully to have preserved it. On that theory any one 
might have gone into the desert and gathered it. 
Gum arabic is found there, and finds its way as an 
article of commerce to all parts of the world even to 
the present day. That which was so carefully pre- 
served in the ark, and which the Psalmist calls 
" angels' food," was a very different thing. So, too, 
its preservation was a standing, visible proof of the 
truthfulness of the Mosaic record ; for had the story 
been an invention, an allegory, or anything but an 
actual occurrence, there must have been a time when 
it was invented, and those who then lived must have 
known that it was a thing of which they had not 
heard before. The interpreter to whom I have re- 
ferred, and to whom we have been alreadv so much 



MOSES. 103 

indebted, must still be our guide. His language is, 
" They drank of that spiritual rock that followed 
them, and that rock was Christ ;" and the reference 
beyond all question is to that period in the journey- 
ing of the Israelites which we have now reached, 
their arrival at a place called Eephidim, where stands 
to this hour a rock smitten by the rod of Moses, and 
whence gushed limpid and refreshing water for the 
thirsty and fainting pilgrims. 

How long the Israelites remained at the station 
where the manna first fell is uncertain. Probably 
something more than a week, as we read of one Sab- 
bath that seems to have intervened before their de- 
parture. Thence still continuing their journey in a 
south-easterly direction, through a barren region of 
rock and sand, they approach a spot well known to 
their leader Moses. It is the neighborhood of Mount 
Horeb, the locality of which was described in a for- 
mer chapter. It was there that the Holy One appeared 
to Moses in the burning bush, burning but uncon- 
sumed ; it was there he heard that mysterious voice, 
" The place whereon thou standest is holy ground ;" 
it was there that vxod renewed his commission as the 
leader and deliverer of his people. With what 
strange and thrilling emotions does Moses watch the 
guiding cloudy pillar as it leads the way toward that 
memorable bush ! With what solemn awe does he 
now conduct that immense multitude toward the very 
spot so indelibly stamped upon* the tablet of his mem- 
ory ! Many wonderful works had been wrought by 
the hand of him whose voice then thrilled his soul. 
His promises thus far had been accomplished. He 



104 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

had brought Israel out of Egypt with a high hand 
and an outstretched arm. He had shown his won- 
ders upon Pharaoh and the Egyptian hosts ; he had 
magnified Moses in their sight, and made him the 
honored instrument not only of the deliverance of his 
people, but of the miracles by which their fears had 
been dissipated and their wants supplied. Truly 
God's word to his servant had been verified, all his 
promises at the burning bush fulfilled. 

Possibly now, as Moses looked back to the hour 
when he turned aside to see that strange sight, and 
his heart glowed with grateful emotions at the re- 
membrance of God's w T onderful goodness; possibly 
he thought now, as again he drew near to the place 
which God himself had called holy ground, that he had 
almost reached the end of his anxieties and perplex- 
ing cares. If so, grievous was his disappointment. 
The vast multitude lift up their voices in loud mur- 
murings and vehement reproaches ; they heap bitter 
and cruel taunts upon the head of the man to whom 
they were so much indebted ; they go further, and 
are almost ready to stone Moses to death. The cause 
of this clamor and tumult is the fact that the pillar 
of cloud, which has been directing them all day 
through a scorching desert where no water was, now 
rests at Rephidim, and the order is given to prepare 
for an encampment. Truly in man's judgment an 
unpropitious spot to select as a resting-place for 
millions of people faint with the severe journey and 
parched with thirst, for here to their unutterable dis- 
may, after searching in every direction, no water is to 
be found. And the people thirsted, and murmured 



MOSES. 105 

against Moses, and said in a strain very similar to 
that we heard a while since at Marah, " "Wherefore 
is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to 
kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" 
At Marah there was indeed water, but it was bitter ; 
here there was no water at all. 

The power by which the bitter waters were healed 
was already forgotten ; nor does it seem to have oc- 
curred to the mind of one of these grumblers that He 
who had rained bread for them from heaven every day, 
whose bread they had that day fed upon, could with 
equal ease send water even amid the barren rocks of 
Rephidim, or as the place was afterward called as a 
memorial of their strife and chiding, Massah and Mer- 
ibah. And Moses called upon God for direction in 
this hour of extreme perplexity. His prayer is ex- 
tremely simple: "Lord, what shall I do?" The 
answer is prompt and satisfactory. The Lord said 
unto Moses, " Go on before the people and take with 
thee of the elders of Israel ; and thy rod, wherewith 
thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. 
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock 
in Horeb ; and thou shalt smite the rock, and "there 
shall come water out of it, that the people may drink." 
Mark the language here : " I will be with thee ; I 
will stand before thee upon the rock ; but thou shalt 
take thy rod and thou shalt smite the rock," an inti- 
mation of what we have seen several times already 
and shall see repeatedly again in the Bible history, 
that though it pleases God to make use of subordi- 
nate agencies in the manifestation of his wonderful 
works, himself does the work and to him belongs the 



106 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTERS. 

glory. And Moses did as God directed. In the 
presence of the elders of Israel he smote the rock and 
" the waters gushed out ; they ran in the dry places 
like a river." Pure and abundant, refreshing, invig- 
orating, life-giving, the streams flowed to the full 
satisfaction of the immense multitude, and not merely 
for a day, but day after day for at least an entire 
year, or until the pilgrims bade farewell to that sa- 
cred region, to Horeb's wondrous mount and Sinai's 
awful summits. 

I have already said that the rock smitten by the 
rod of Moses stands there to this hour, a mute but 
eloquent witness to the truth of the Scripture history. 
I make the assertion on the authority of the cele- 
brated Dr. Shaw, who traveled this entire region of 
country. This is his testimony : " After we had de- 
scended, with no small difficulty, the western side 
of this mount," (that is, Mount Sinai,) " we came into 
the plain or wilderness of Rephidim, where we saw 
that extraordinary antiquity, the rock of Meribah, 
which has continued down to this day without the 
least injury from time or accidents. This is rightly 
called from its hardness (Deut. viii, 15) a rock of 
flint ; though from the purple or reddish color of it 
it may be rather rendered the rock of amethyst, or 
the amethystine or granite rock. It is about six 
yards square, lying tottering as it were, and loose, 
near the middle of the valley, and seems to have been 
formerly a part or cliff of Mount Sinai, which hangs 
in a variety of precipices all over this plain. The 
waters which gushed out and the stream which 
flowed withal have hollowed across one corner of 



MOSES. 107 

this rock a channel about two inches deep and twenty 
wide, all over incrnsted like the inside of a tea-kettle 
that has been long used. Besides several mossy 
productions that are still preserved by the dew, we 
see all over this channel a great number of holes, 
some of them four or five inches deep and one or 
two in diameter, the lively and demonstrative tokens 
of their having been formerly so many fountains. 
Neither could art or chance be concerned in the con- 
trivance, inasmuch as every circumstance points out 
to us a miracle ; and in the same manner with the 
rent in the rock of Mount Calvary in Jerusalem, 
never fails to produce the greatest seriousness and 
devotion in all who see it." Thus far the testimony 
of this learned traveler on this most important 
topic. 

Turning now from the narrative of Moses, let 
us listen a few moments to the Apostle Paul, and 
from his language, so earnest and instructive, let 
us endeavor to make that practical improvement of 
the subject evidently intended by the Holy Spirit, 
under whose inspiration both Paul and Moses wrote. 
They drank of that spiritual rock, that is, of course, of 
the waters flowing from that rock, a very common 
mode of expression, as where the Saviour speaks of 
drinking the cup he evidently means the wine con- 
tained therein. That rock followed them. From 
this expression some have inferred that the waters of 
Meribah continued flowing through the desert in all 
the wanderings of the Israelites for eight and thirty 
years. This opinion I think is scarcely warranted by 
the history. On the contrary it is expressly stated 



108 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

that on another occasion, when in their journeyings 
they reached a place called Kadesh Barnea, the peo- 
ple again thirsted and murmured, and another rock 
sent forth streams when smitten by the wonder-work- 
ing rod of Moses. The fact seems to be that the 
plenteous streams from Horeb flowed down the sides 
of the rocks and hills, perhaps for some miles, until 
they emptied into the sea, and from them the Israel- 
ites slaked their thirst during somewhat more than 
a year in which they remained in this neighborhood. 
But Paul calls this a spiritual rock. We have just 
had a literal description of this mass of granite, and 
the entire record proceeds upon the ground that the 
rock was material, and the water was used to slake 
the natural thirst. 

I understand by the word spiritual then in this 
connection, first, supernatural as opposed to natural : 
water supplied by the miraculous power of God in 
contradistinction to that which flowed in the run- 
ning brooks or bubbled up in the natural spring. 
Secondly, by the word spiritual the apostle conveys 
the idea that the water was emblematical and typical, 
as in the case of the manna as before explained. 
That was called spiritual meat, shadowing forth him 
who in the fullness of time proclaimed, " I am that 
bread of life." So in the case before us they drank of 
the waters flowing from that rock, and in confirma- 
tion of the view just presented the apostle adds, that 
rock was Christ. If there be any difficulty here- it 
is met and solved by Christ's own language when 
at the last supper he brake the bread and gave it 
to the disciples, saying, " Take, eat, this is my 



MOSES. 109 

body," meaning, as an unprejudiced reader can- 
not help understanding him, this represents my 
body. 

The apostle's meaning, then, is evident ; and though 
there has been in the Christian Church, and is now, 
though not to so great an extent as formerly, a dis- 
position to spiritualize everything in the Bible, to 
find fancied spiritual allusions where none was in- 
tended, we are in no danger of running in that direc- 
tion. The limpid waters gushing from the rock of 
Horeb in the wilderness typified the son of God smit- 
ten for the world's salvation ; and the meandering 
streams flowing in the desert the fullness, the suf- 
ficiency, and the freeness of his saving grace. In 
its fullness : when the rock was smitten the water 
gushed out, not *in rivulets or little streams, but 
copiously. The waters ran in dry places, says the 
Psalmist, like a river, and again not like one river 
merely, but, as he says in another place, he brought 
streams out of the rock and caused waters to run 
down like rivers, he gave them drink as out of the 
great depths. This is a topic upon which the sacred 
writers never weary. " Ho, every one that thirsteth, 
come ye to the waters." " The glorious Lord will be 
unto us a place of broad rivers and streams." 
" There is a river the streams whereof shall make 
glad the city of God." " In that day living waters 
shall go out from Jerusalem ; in summer and in 
winter shall it be." So precisely with the antitype. 
" It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness 
dwell ; " and " where sin abounded grace did much 
more abound." What language is this ! Where sin 



110 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

abounded? Why that's everywhere through the 
entire human family. 

"Sprung from the man whose guilty fall 
Corrupts his race, and taints us all." 

" All have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
God." Even so. Sin abounded, but grace did much 
more abound. Was there water enough flowing 
from the smitten rock to quench the thirst of the 
fainting Israelites in the desert ? Enough ? ay, and 
to spare, had their numbers been multiplied a thou- 
sandfold. Is there a sufficiency of saving grace for 
every sinner in Him whom the smitten rock typified ? 
He himself shall answer. "In the last day, that 
great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, If any 
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." Can 
you tell me, then, why one sinner goes down to 
eternal death unpardoned ? Say you he is lost be- 
cause of his sins ? Rather, he perishes because of 
his willful refusal to accept the offer of salvation ; 
just as we may imagine, though it is very difficult to 
imagine, an Israelite there in the desert dying of 
thirst. He perishes, not because there is no water, 
but because he refuses to .partake of what is so boun- 
tifully provided. So with the sinner of the present 
day. Christ says, " Te will not come unto me that 
ye might have life." 

I spoke of the sufficiency as well as of the fullness 
of the waters of salvation. I use the word to express 
an idea a little different from the one just considered. 
My meaning will appear by adverting again to the 
Israelites encamped at Eephidim, by the wondrous 



MOSES. Ill 

rock of Horeb. They were not only thirsty, but, as 
an unavoidable result of their long journey through 
the sands of the desert, they were polluted, and the 
water not only quenched their thirst but cleansed 
their impurities. Listen to the prophet looking for- 
ward to the times of the promised Messiah : " In that 
day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of 
David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin 
and for uncleanness." The fountain, you perceive, is 
for two purposes, and these purposes are still more 
clearly indicated by the beloved disciple when, speak- 
ing of him who is styled the " Rock of which the Is- 
raelites drank," he says, " He is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unright- 
eousness." The wearied pilgrims needed something 
more than to quench their burning thirst, so the sin- 
ner needs something more than the pardon of his 
sins : it is to be cleansed from the defilement, the pol- 
lution of inbred sin. 

It is written of Christ that he is made unto us sanc- 
tification as well as redemption ; and though this 
special office is attributed to the Holy Spirit as 
the agent, yet is Christ the procuring cause of this 
great work, the purifier as well as the Saviour of his 
people. From him came the promise in the dark 
days of the prophet : " Then will I sprinkle clean 
water upon you, and ye shall be clean ; from all your 
filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you." 
And thus speaks the apostle on the same subject : 
" Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for 
it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the 
washing of water by the word ; that he might present 



112 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

it to himself a glorious Church, not haying spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy 
and without blemish." 

"From Christ, the smitten rock, it flows, 

The purple and the crystal stream ; 
Pardon and holiness bestows, 

And both are gained through faith in him." 

There remains yet one other thought suggested 
and beautifully illustrated by the streams which 
flowed there in the desert to slake the thirst and to 
purify and cleanse the hosts of Israel. It is the free- 
ness with which all might partake those benefits. 
Surely they had done nothing to deserve this signal 
display of God's wonderful goodness. On the con- 
trary, they had done much to provoke his wrath and 
call down his hot displeasure. They forgot the 
blessings already conferred upon them; they ques- 
tioned the ability as well as the willingness of the 
Almighty to make provision for their wants. They 
were full of unbelief; they gave way to loud mur- 
murings and complainings ; they were even ready to 
imbrue their hands in the blood of their heaven-ap- 
pointed leader. Who does not see herein a vivid 
picture of that ruined race for whom Christ died upon 
the cross % " He came not to call the righteous, but 
sinners to repentance ;" a£d " while we were yet en- 
emies, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Of 
the flowing streams from Horeb's smitten rock, all, 
the vilest and the most unworthy, might partake 
freely. Had the waters been put up for sale; had 
Moses required in exchange their possessions, their 
wealth, their cattle, their worldly all, they had 



MOSES. 113 

been freely given, for without the water a horrid 
death had speedily been their fate, and their bones 
had been left to blanch and rot in the wilderness. 

Listen now to the glorious counterpart as presented 
in the language of the sacred writers. The great 
burden of their theme, its glory, is summed up in the 
words of the prophet : " Without money and without 
price ;" " And the Spirit and the bride say, Come ; and 
let him that heareth say, Come ; and let him that is 
athirst come, and whosoever will let him take the 
water of life freely." " Whosoever shall drink of the 
water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the 
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
water springing up into everlasting life." May we 
hear and heed this gracious offer ! May we turn to 
the smitten rock, the crucified, and say, 

" Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in thee ; 
Let the water and the blood, 
From thy wounded side which flowed, 
Be of sin the double cure, — 
Save from wrath and make me pure." 
8 



114 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTEK YIII. 

THE FIRST BATTLE. 

" And Moses built an altar, and called the name 
of it Jehovah-nissi," (Exod. xvii, 15,) that is, The 
Lord my banner. That altar was built to commem- 
orate a great victory, and this name was given to 
it as an acknowledgment that the victory had been 
gained by the interposition of the Almighty. It 
is equivalent to the exclamation of the Psalmist, 
"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy 
name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's 
sake." It was the first battle in which the Israelites 
had ever been engaged. It took place at Kephidim, 
soon after the smiting of the rock at Horeb. 

It is the generally received opinion that the people 
who made this war upon Israel, the Amalekites, 
were descendants of Esau. Their hostility is ac- 
counted for by the fact that their ancestor had been 
supplanted and defrauded of his birthright by his 
brother Jacob, the great progenitor of this people/ 
In the genealogical list of Esau's descendants there 
is one who bears the name of Amalek. He was the 
son of Eliphaz, and it has been rather hastily con- 
cluded that from him the Amalekites derived their 
origin and their name. It seems to have been over- 
looked by those who adopt this opinion that the 
Amalekites are spoken of as a distinct tribe long be- 
fore the time of Esau, namely, in the fourteenth 



MOSES. 115 

chapter of Genesis, ere yet God's covenant had been 
made with Abraham, or that patriarch had obtained 
the title of Father of the faithful. I rather incline 
to the opinion, therefore, that there is truth in the 
tradition still held among the Arabs, that the Amal- 
ekites were descended from Ham, the youngest son 
of Noah. In confirmation of this yiew I remark that 
in all the history of this people we never find them 
associating or forming alliances with the Edomites, 
the known descendants of Esau, but always with the 
Philistines and Oanaanites; and in the remarkable 
prophecy of Balaam, as found in the twenty-fourth 
chapter of Numbers, he calls Amalek the first of the 
nations, indicating, as may be supposed, the great 
antiquity of that people ; a supposition inconsistent 
with the theory that they were descended from the 
recent stock of Esau's grandson. 

The country inhabited by the Amalekites was in 
the north-western part of Stony Arabia, extending to 
the southern border of the land of Canaan. They 
were at this time a powerful and warlike race. 
Their object in making an attack upon these pilgrims 
in the desert was, in the first place, plunder. They 
had doubtless heard of the terrible disaster which 
befell Pharaoh and his hosts, and were aware that 
from them the Israelites had come into the possession 
not only of armor but of wealth. Then, again, they 
looked upon these wanderers as invaders, intruding 
into a region which belonged to them, and supposed, 
which was the fact, that these Israelites were unac- 
customed to war ; that, consequently, they might easily 
be defeated, robbed of their possessions, and the en- 



116 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

tire race exterminated or brought into bondage. The 
Psalmist mentions Amalek especially, among the 
enemies of God's people, as having said, " Come 
and let ns cut them off from being a nation, that 
the name of Israel may be no more in remem- 
brance." 

The manner in which the Amalekites commenced 
the attack is described in the book of Deuteronomy : 
" Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, 
when ye were come forth out of Egypt ; how he met 
thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, 
even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou 
wast faint and weary." The attack appears to have 
been made when the Israelites little expected it, sud- 
denly and without warning ; probably at or near the 
close of a day's march, when they were faint and 
weary with travel. The enemy fell suddenly upon 
the rear of the Israelitish host, where, as was their 
custom, they had placed the aged and infirm, the 
women and children. It was a time, as may well be 
supposed, of consternation and dismay. The shrieks 
of the wounded and the dying, and the terrible war-cry 
of the Amalekites, were the first tidings that reached 
the ears of Moses, and made him aware of the fact 
that utter destruction was impending. How many 
were slaughtered on that dreadful eve we know not, 
but as darkness drew on the enemy seems to have 
rested from his bloody work. 

And here we are introduced to a man who figures 
largely in the sacred history. It is Joshua, whose 
name first occurs in connection with the account of this 
attack of the Amalekites. He was the son of Nun, of 



MOSES. ■ 117 

the tribe of Ephraim, a man whose character is one of 
the most faultless of those drawn by the pencil of inspi- 
ration. His name at first was Hosea, changed after- 
ward, as was common in that age, to Joshua, a word 
meaning, literally, the salvation of God ; and twice in 
the New Testament he is called Jesus, both names 
being the same in the Greek language. In the course 
of this narrative he will frequently appear, and I may 
here say of him that he was alike distinguished for fidel- 
ity and bravery. He is called the minister or servant 
of Moses, and when Moses had finished the work God 
gave him to do, Joshua was selected as the leader of 
the hosts of Israel. He was born in the year from 
the creation 2460, and at the time of which we are 
now speaking was in the fifty-third year of his age. 
To him Moses commits the charge of making all 
necessary preparation for the contest of the coming 
day. That there was a manifest propriety in the se- 
lection of Joshua as a military leader is evident from 
his whole career ; indeed, it is more than probable 
that in this matter Moses acted under the direction of 
God himself. 

And now let us dwell a moment upon the peculiar 
difficulties of the task thus devolving upon Joshua. 
That task is to meet the Amalekites in the field of 
battle on the ensuing day. They were a tribe whose 
trade was war. To the use of offensive and defensive 
weapons they had been trained from childhood. 
They were flushed with the success they had already 
attained, eager for the contest, and confident of an 
easy victory. To oppose them, Joshua, himself un- 
bkilled in the use of arms, having never seen a battle, 



118 OLD TESTAMEXT CHARACTERS. 

is directed to select suitable men from the different 
tribes. In what manner he made this selection, 
whether by lot or by calling for volunteers, is not 
stated. Nor does it seem to be a matter of much 
consequence. There could have been but very little 
choice among those from whom the selection was to 
be made. They were timorous and faint-hearted ; 
they had lived a life of degradation and of bondage. 
Again, they had not that incentive which some- 
times nerves the timorous, and inspires even a coward 
with momentary courage. They had no homes to 
fight for ; in fact, no native land. There, in a waste, 
howling wilderness, mourning over the dead and the 
dying and the wounded, terror stricken, with the 
fierce Amalekites resting upon their arms in the 
neighborhood of their encampment, with the assured 
conviction that on the dawning of the morning's sun 
the attack will be renewed with redoubled fury, 
slowly pass away the dreary hours of that dreadful 
night. There was little sleep within those tents ; and 
the Israelitish mother, as she placed her little ones in 
their humble bed, had no heart to sing to them her 
evening lullaby and soothe them into slumber. 

The newly-appointed general is hurrying from tent 
to tent, summoning his countrymen to the rendez- 
vous. Everything is to be done in haste. The men 
are to be selected; the weapons once used by the 
Egyptians, and gathered up from the shores of the 
Red Sea, are to be distributed ; and, hardest task of 
all, these utterly ignorant men are to be taught how 
to use them, to be drilled to meet an enemy whose 
trade was war. No gorgeous banner flutters in the 



MOSES. 119 

breeze ; no rattling drum, nor trumpet blast, nor bu- 
gle melody disturbs the midnight silence, or stirs the 
sluggish blood, or nerves the spirit of the faint- 
hearted Israelite. Every thing wears a dreary aspect, 
and nothing prevents the entire host from sinking 
into utter apathy, and giving way to the dominion of 
Despair as she flaps over them her raven wing, nothing 
but, what? Not the calm serenity of Moses nor 
Joshua's energetic appeal ; not the hope of victory 
nor the thirst for vengeance. But what is it ? There, 
in mid heaven, hanging over the encampment, is that 
mysterious pillar of fire, the symbol of God's pres- 
ence. He who brought them out from the land of 
bondage with an outstretched arm, with terrible signs 
and wonders ; who triumphed gloriously at the waters 
of the Red Sea, who had been their guide and pro- 
tector and provider, who furnished bread in the wil- 
derness and caused the waters to gush from the rock, 
even the God of their fathers was with them. 

But the day dawns. The fiery pillar becomes 
pale. It is a massy, dark, thick cloud; but still 
it is the Shekinah, the visible manifestation of Je- 
hovah's presence. The war-cry of Amalek floats 
upon the breeze. His serried ranks, invigorated and 
refreshed by a night's repose, rush on furiously. Not 
so easy, as the skirmishing of yesterday led them to 
suppose, is the victory to be won to-day. The little 
army, the picked men of Israel, with Joshua at their 
head, stand ready to receive the onset and to repel 
the attack. Yery different is the combat from those 
of which we are wont to hear and read in modern 
days, On neither side no deep-mouthed cannon roar, 



120 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 

or muskets rattle their fiery hail. The use of gun- 
powder was unknown; and, as in all the wars of 
which we read in those earlier ages, the contest de- 
pended mainly on personal prowess and individual 
courage. 

And now the battle has begun. It rages with in- 
creasing fury. Amalek commenced the attack and 
fought desperately. Joshua's little band, now using 
weapons of war for the first time, are scattered before 
the insulting foe. But they rally again, and now the 
Amalekites give way before them. They fly, and ap- 
parently are about to quit the field and yield the day. 
But they halt, and again face the Israelites, and thus 
nearly the entire day is spent in alternations of suc- 
cess and defeat ; victory appearing at one time in 
favor of Joshua, at another the exulting shouts of 
Amalek proclaim their triumph. 

It was a strangely contested field ; and see now the 
reasons for this strange diversity of success and defeat. 
You remember that hill of which I gave a brief descrip- 
tion in a former chapter. It is called Mount Horeb. It 
overlooks the vast plain in which the battle is raging. 
There, upon the top of that mount, is he who gave 
Joshua his commission as captain of Israel's army. 
"Why stands he there beyond the reach of danger 
while his people are periling their lives and pouring 
out their blood in the deadly conflict ? But Moses is 
not alone upon the hill-top. There are two others 
with him. One of them we recognize as Aaron, his 
elder brother. The other is a younger man ; his name 
is Hur, the son of Caleb, a name afterward associated 
with that of Joshua in the hour of Israel's greatest 



MOSES. 121 

triumph. But why are they there upon the top of 
the hill in safety from the arrows and the javelins of 
Amalek ? Truly it would seem as if this were no 
time for them to be loitering there. Moses stands 
with his hands uplifted, still holding the wonder- 
working rod which smote the rock and parted the 
raging waters of the sea. As it is held up Israel tri- 
umphs in the valley below, and strange to say, the fate 
of the battle is depending upon that arm, for it came 
to pass that when Moses held up his hand Israel pre- 
vailed, and when he let down his hand Amalek pre- 
vailed. " But Moses' hands were heavy, and they 
took a stone and put it under him and he sat thereon ; 
and Aaron and Hur staid up his hands, the one on 
the one side and the other on the other side ; and his 
hands were steady until the going down of the 
sun." And until the going down of the sun the 
contest raged, and then the Amalekites fled, con- 
quered by the raw, undisciplined troops of Joshua. 
The victory was complete, and the shout of tri- 
umph re-echoed through the hosts of Israel. To 
whom shall we inscribe this monument erected 
there to commemorate the fight ? That question is 
already answered. The inscription is written. Ap- 
proach and read it. It is Jehovah-nissi, the Lord 
my banner. 

It was in commemoration of this victory that Moses 
built the monumental altar which he inscribed Jeho- 
vah-nissi, thus acknowledging that it was the hand 
of the Lord, and not their courage or their sword, that 
gave them the victory. 

By this day's conflict Israel was taught, as God is 



122 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

teaching us through the entire record of his revealed 
will, that man must be a co-worker with him in 
effecting results tending to our own well-being and 
the advancement of his glory. It is the great lesson 
of faith and works, and with both of entire depend- 
ence upon God. " Neither is he that planteth any 
thing nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the 
increase ;" yet unless we plant and water no increase 
need be looked for. Vain had been the prayers of 
Moses on the hill and his uplifted rod had he not 
been sustained on the right hand and on the left by 
his faithful associates ; and vain the outstretched rod 
but for the valor and the toil of Joshua's little band ; 
and all must have been in vain but for the blessing 
of that God who required these efforts from his 
people, and whose direction always has been, still 
is, and ever will be, " Work out your own salva- 
tion with fear and trembling, for it is God that 
worketh in you, to will and to do of his own good 
pleasure." 

One thing more. As in the case of Israel's fight 
with Amalek, they had the uplifted arm of their 
leader, which secured to them the victory ; so with 
the armies of God's Israel now, so with every indi- 
vidual soldier of Christ, the direction is, " Take 
unto you the whole armor of God, let truth be your 
girdle and righteousness your breastplate : with the 
sword of the spirit and the shield of faith ;" and 
yet, thus armed in all the panoply of war, there is 
no hope of victory save only in the fact that upon 
the everlasting hills is He who ever liveth to make 
intercession for us. Not a mere man, like Moses, 



MOSES. 123 

whose arms wearied, and who required an Aaron 
and a Hur on either side to bear them up. But it 
is he who fainteth not, who never slumbers nor 
sleeps ; even he who came from Edom with dyed 
garments, from Bozrah, reef in his apparel, travel- 
ing in the greatness of his strength, mighty to 
save. 



124 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS, 



CHAPTER IX. 

SINAI. 

We have, as we have proceeded, seen Moses in 
many situations of perplexing difficulty ; and you 
may remember that in giving an account of his last 
interview with King Pharaoh, it was said that thence 
onward to the end of his days he was a stranger to 
fear. Yet in the position in which we are now to 
see him he says, " I exceedingly fear and quake." 
We had occasion to refer to that timidity which once 
caused him to shrink from a duty assigned him by 
his God. Yet was he a man of great firmness of pur- 
pose, and but little affected by circumstances of diffi- 
culty or of danger. When the proud Egyptian 
threatened him with instant death if again he ven- 
tured into his presence, and said, " See my face no 
more," he replied simply, " Thou hast spoken well, I 
will see thy face no more." On that dreadful night 
when the destroying angel made inquisition for blood, 
and all was hurry and confusion among the people, 
Moses remembers the dying words of Joseph, and de- 
liberately takes from the Egyptian tomb his embalmed 
body that it may be carried to the promised land. 
On the margin of the Ped Sea, when the wild uproar 
of the terrified Israelites would have appalled a man 
.of ordinary nerve, his calm voice is heard, u Stand 
still and see the salvation of the Lord." So, also, as 
we have seen at the bitter waters of Marah, where 



MOSES. 125 

they murmured against him ; and at Zin, where, with 
the fury of men believing themselves on the verge 
of starvation, they heaped bitter denunciations upon 
his head ; and worse yet at Rephidim, where they 
for whom he had abandoned the prospect of royalty, 
an Egyptian crown and scepter, his own people were 
almost ready to stone him to death ; so when the 
terrible war-cry of Amalek sent a thrill of horror 
through the hearts of the trembling fugitives, and 
during the long hours while the battle raged, how 
calm and collected, how firm and unwavering does 
this man of God appear ! And yet at the vision that 
here arose before him, Paul tells us that so terrible 
was the sight that Moses said, " I exceedingly fear 
and quake." "Why was this ? I shall attempt to an- 
swer this question by giving a glimpse of that terri- 
ble sight, as Paul calls it. I say a glimpse of it, for 
we can see it only as through a glass, darkly. We 
cannot see that sight as Moses saw it, but its general 
outline will sufficiently account for that strange fear 
with which he trembled. 

Previous to entering directly upon this subject, 
however, there is a little episode, if I may so call it, 
that intervenes, to which it is necessary to devote a 
few moments' attention. Immediately following the 
battle between the Israelites and the sons of Amalek, 
we have in our bibles, although some think it out of 
its proper order, an account of an interview between 
Moses and his father-in-law. There were present 
also at this meeting Zipporah, the wife of Moses, and 
his two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. This, therefore, 
seems to be the appropriate place for a few remarks 



126 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEKS. 

upon the family connections of Moses, and for saying 
all that is necessary relative to the character and his- 
tory of the individuals referred to. It seems that the 
father of Zipporah was called in the former part of 
the history Reuel, or Raguel, but is now introduced 
to us by the name of Jethro. Hence some have in- 
ferred that different individuals are meant, which is 
not likely. Raguel seems to be but a variation in the 
spelling of Reuel, and Jethro was but another name 
for the same person. This Jethro, for I shall so call 
him, was a Midianite, and is called the priest of Mid- 
ian. The region of country in which he dwelt was 
situated in Stony Arabia, on the south of the Dead 
Sea. It derived its name from one of the sons of 
Abraham by Keturah, of whom mention is made in 
the twenty-fifth chapter of the book of Genesis. It 
is there stated that to Isaac the patriarch gave all that 
he had, that is, all his family estate ; but unto the 
sons of Keturah, of whom Midian was one, he gave 
gifts, and sent them away from Isaac, his son, while 
he yet lived, eastward unto the east country. There 
the descendants of this Midian increased and multi- 
plied, following for the most part the occupation of 
shepherds. Into their territory Moses fled when he 
forsook Egypt. There he met with Zipporah and 
her six sisters, daughters of this Jethro. There 
he married, there were born his two sons, and 
there he dwelt for forty years, subsisting by his 
daily toil. Among this pastoral people it would 
seem that at this time some knowledge of the true 
God existed. It had come down from their ancestor, 
Midian, who was taught its rudiments by his father 



MOSES. 127 

Abraham previous to leaving the paternal tent. 
Jethro it seems exercised the priestly office. On the 
occasion of the interview between him and his son- 
in-law, now under consideration, he took a burnt- 
offering and sacrifices for God, and when he heard 
from Moses a statement of the wonderful things that 
had happened to the Israelites, it is said he rejoiced 
for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Is- 
rael, and he gave vent to the pious emotions of his 
heart in the language, " Blessed be the Lord who 
hath delivered the people from under the hand of the 
Egyptians ; and now I know that the Lord is greater 
than all gods, for in the thing wherein they dealt 
proudly he was above them." From Jethro, Moses 
also received advice relative to the performance of 
various duties devolving upon him as the leader of 
the people ; and from all the accounts we have of him, 
he appears to have been a man of great intelligence, 
as well as a believer in the God of Abraham. 

Of Zipporah, the wife of Moses, very little is said in 
the sacred record. She appears to have been faithful 
as a wife, and as a mother most devoted. Eliezer and 
Gershom, the two sons of Moses who accompanied their 
mother and grandfather on this visit to the Israelites' 
encampment, became afterward leaders among the 
Levites, and their names are occasionally mentioned 
in subsequent parts of the Bible. The interview be- 
tween these relatives, who had been separated but for 
a few months, is described with great simplicity by 
the sacred writer. Moses hearing of their approach, 
went out to meet them. The two having embraced 
each other, Moses gives an account of the strange 



128 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

events that had happened since his departure from 
that country, of the plagues which fell upon the 
Egyptians, the wonderful passage of the Red Sea, the 
miracle of the manna, the water gushing from the 
rock, and the victory over Amalek. In return, from 
his wife and sons, he has an account of whatever was 
thought worth telling in the course of their daily vo- 
cations in the land of Midian. Then an entertain- 
ment was prepared to which were invited Aaron and 
all the elders of Israel. In the simple style of the 
sacred narrative, " Aaron came, and all the elders of 
Israel, to eat bread with Moses's father-in-law before 
God." Jethro remained another day, witnessing the 
arduous duties devolving upon Moses as a judge 
among the people, and by his advice subordinate 
rulers, able men who feared God and hated cov- 
etousness, were selected to assist Moses in bear- 
ing the heavy burden which he was unable to bear 
alone. 

Jethro then returned to his own land, leaving Zip- 
porah and her two sons with Moses. 

Passing now from this simple narrative so illustra- 
tive of primitive manners and customs, we come to 
the more immediate subject of this chapter. Since 
the Passover forty-five days have elapsed, and the 
Israelites are now in what is called the wilderness of 
Sinai, so called from the mountain of that name. It 
is a region of country full of the most hallowed asso- 
ciations. It has been frequently visited and described 
by modern travelers, and is at th« present hour very 
little changed from what it was in the days of Moses. 
Unlike those regions with which we are familiar, it is 



MOSES. 129 

untouched by the hand of improvement, and the 
lapse of ages makes there very little impression or 
alteration. The description of a journey thither by 
an American traveler is the most graphic, and may 
be relied upon as strictly accurate. He says : " The 
last was by far the most interesting day of my jour- 
ney to Mount Sinai. We were moving along abroad 
valley, bounded by ranges of lofty and crumbling 
mountains, forming an immense rocky rampart on 
each side of us. The whole day we were 'moving 
between parallel ranges of mountains, receding in 
some places and then again contracting, and about 
mid-day entered a narrow and ragged defile, bounded 
on each side with precipitous granite rocks more than 
one thousand feet high. We entered at the very bot- 
tom of this defile, moving for a time along the dry bed 
of a torrent, now obstructed with sand and stones, the 
rocks on every side shivered and torn, and the whole 
scene wild to sublimity. Our camels stumbled 
among the rocky fragments to such a degree that we 
dismounted and passed through the wild defile on 
foot. At the other end we came suddenly upon a 
plain table of ground, and before us towered in aw- 
ful grandeur, so huge and dark that it seemed close 
to us, and barring all further progress, the end of my 
pilgrimage, the holy mountain of Sinai." " Among 
all the stupendous works of nature," continues this 
intelligent traveler, " not a place can be selected 
more fitted for the exhibition of Almighty power. 
I have stood upon the summit of the giant ^Etna, 
and looked over the clouds floating beneath it 

upon the bold scenery of Sicily and the distant 

9 



130 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

mountains of Calabria ; upon the top of Vesuvius, 
and looked down upon the waves of lava and the 
rained cities at its foot ; but they are nothing com- 
pared with the terrific solitudes and bleak majesty 
of Sinai." 

Yery similar is the account given by Professor Ko- 
binson : " We were surprised and delighted," he says, 
" to find ourselves, after two hours, crossing the whole 
length of a fine plain, from the southern end of which 
that part of Sinai now called Horeb rises perpendicu- 
larly in dark and frowning majesty. This plain is 
over two miles in length and nearly two thirds of a 
mile broad. It is wholly inclosed by dark granite 
mountains, stern, naked, splintered peaks and ridges, 
from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet high." 
This plain, it is believed by the most competent 
authorities, is the spot where the Israelites were 
now encamped. Over the top of that dark frowning 
mountain is resting the cloudy pillar, the shekinah of 
the divine presence and glory. A voice issues from 
the cloud, the leader of Israel's host is called by name, 
and Moses went up unto God. So it is written. The 
meaning is, having heard that mysterious voice which 
called him, the same voice which thrilled his soul at 
the burning bush, Moses went up to the top of the 
mountain, entered within the cloud of the divine 
presence, and remained there in the mount forty 
days and forty nights, and God talked with him as a 
man talketh with his friend." He makes known to 
the chosen leader of the hosts of Israel the object and 
design of this wonderful manifestation ; there the In- 
visible spake unto him : " Lo, I come unto thee in a 



MOSES. 131 

thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak 
with thee and believe thee forever." That is, the 
design of this supernatural array, this dark cloud 
resting on the brow of this terrific mountain, this 
voice calling thee up hither, is that the people of Is- 
rael may have incontestible evidence of the divinity 
of the message which I shall send them. And not 
for this generation alone are these things done. In 
God's own language, " that they may believe thee 
forever." 

Of the immense multitude who gazed awe-struck 
upon the dark cloud whence issued that mysterious 
voice, not a single individual doubted the reality of 
the divine presence, or questioned for a moment that 
the message brought to them by Moses came directly 
from the God of their fathers. But more than this. 
Through all succeeding generations, in the history of 
this people, the divine legation of Moses was an un- 
questioned fact. In the days of the Messiah, when 
the nation seems to have been almost given up to ju- 
dicial blindness, and unbelief reigned with despotic 
sway over almost every Israelitish heart, even then 
the name of Moses was held in esteem bordering 
upon idolatry. They were wont to connect his name 
with that of God himself. " We know," said they, 
" that God spake unto Moses," and you remember the 
charge brought against him whose glorious privilege 
it was to win the first martyr's crown — a charge false, 
indeed, and preposterous, yet evincing the reverence 
of the people for the memory of their great leader. 
" We have heard him speak blasphemous words against 
Moses and against God." And even in our own day, 



132 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

now that the descendants of Israel are scattered 
among the nations of the earth, despised and perse- 
cuted in one region and barely tolerated anywhere, 
not a Jewish heart but vibrates to the name of Moses, 
and traces back his veneration for that name to the 
wonders wrought by his hand in the wilderness, to 
the dark cloud upon the brow of Sinai and the 
mysterious voice that issued thence : " Lo, I come 
unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may 
hear when I speak with thee and believe thee for 
ever." 

The purport of this communication to Moses was, 
that God now intended to enter into a special cove- 
nant with that people. Previous to announcing the 
terms of this covenant, God reminds the people of 
the great things he had already done for them. " Ye 
have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I 
bare you on eagle's wings ;" a beautiful and most ex- 
pressive figure, amplified and explained in the song 
of Moses just before he went upon Pisgah's top to 
view the promised land and die : " For the Lord's 
portion is his people : Jacob is the lot of his inherit- 
ance. He found him in a desert land, and in the 
waste howling wilderness : he led him about, he in- 
structed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, 
beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did 
lead him." And now greater things than these are 
promised. " If ye will obey my voice and keep my 
covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar people unto me 
above all people, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom 



MOSES. 133 

of priests and a holy nation." Ye shall be taken 
into a close and intimate communion with. God ; ye 
shall all be regarded, not as subjects merely, but as a 
commonwealth peculiarly honored among the nations 
of the earth, equals in rank, and dignity, and honor. 
To adopt the language of a modern biblical scholar : 
" As the priestly order was set apart from the com- 
mon mass of the people, and exclusively authorized 
to minister in holy things, so all the Israelites, com- 
pared with other nations, were to sustain this near 
relation to God." Mark how this same idea runs 
through the entire revelation of God's will ; and not 
the idea merely, but the very language, affording 
another evidence that the entire Bible comes from one 
and the same source, and that the promises in the 
New Testament are the same as those in the Old, 
irradiated indeed with clearer light and made more 
glorious by the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. 
Speaking to the disciples of Christ, the true Israel 
of God, the apostle says : " Te are built up a spirit- 
ual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacri- 
fices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ ;" illustrating 
the prediction of the prophet, that in the acceptable 
year of the Lord, when shall be given unto them that 
mourn in Zion beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for 
mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of 
heaviness, that then ye shall be named the priests of 
the Lord, and that men shall call you the ministers of 
our God. 

And in the same vein is the new song as heard by 
another apostle in that apocalyptic vision which 
closes the sacred canon. " They sing," says he, " a 



134 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book 
and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, 
and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of 
every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, 
and hast made us unto our God kings and priests. 5 ' 
The condition upon which these promises are made, 
the people's part of this covenant, are indicated with 
great clearness. They are all contained in one word, 
Obedience. " If ye will obey my voice. And all 
the people answered together and said, All that the 
Lord hath spoken will we do," a prompt, unhesitat- 
ing, and unanimous acceptance of the terms of the 
covenant. A resolution made, doubtless, with the 
most perfect sincerity. How it was kept, their future 
history will develop. 

This covenant between God and the Israelites was 
made on the forty-seventh day after the Passover. 
For a reason which will presently be seen, it is need- 
ful to be accurate in our reckoning here. The first 
day of their encampment in the wilderness of Sinai 
was the forty-fifth, dating from the sacrifice of the 
paschal lamb, when the blood of that lamb was sprin- 
kled upon their dwellings. On the forty-sixth Moses 
had this his first interview with God ; on the forty- 
seventh the entire host accepted the terms of the 
covenant, and promised obedience; two days more 
elapse whereon, in compliance with directions given 
them, the people engage in solemn religious services. 
" Go," said God, " and sanctify them to-day and to- 
morrow, and let them wash their clothes," an outward 
act of cleansing symbolical of inward purification, 

and be ready against the third day;" that is, of 



a 



MOSES. 135 

course, the fiftieth, known ever after in the annals of 
the Israelites, and in ours for a yet more signal dis- 
play of the glory of God, as the day of Pentecost. 
Theirs was the fiftieth from the slaughter of the pas- 
chal lamb, ours the fiftieth from the crucifixion of 
the Lamb of God. 

And now that fiftieth day dawns upon the world, 
a day the like of which the all-beholding sun saw 
never nor again shall see till time shall be no mor^. 
The thick cloud resting on Sinai's awful summit 
appears in increasing blackness; there are issuing 
thence vivid lightnings and terrible thunderings. 
" The heavens, and the earth, and the elements con- 
spire to signalize " the advent of creation's God, about 
to speak, not to that generation merely, but to all 
people in all ages. " Thunder, lightning, tempest, 
the blackness of darkness, smoke, fire, earthquake,' 5 
and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud ! And 
the smoke of Mount Sinai ascended as the smoke of 
a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly, and 
not only the mount, but " the earth shook and trem- 
bled, the foundation also of the hills moved and were 
shaken." It is then said of that great God with 
whom these Israelites had made a covenant, " He 
bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was 
under his feet. He made darkness his secret place ; 
his pavilion round about him were dark waters and 
thick clouds of the skies." And a>ll the people that 
were in the camp trembled when they heard the voice 
of the archangel and the trump of God. And so ter- 
rible was the sight, that even Moses, he who had 
talked with the Almighty at the burning bush, who 



136 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

undaunted had seen the terrors of God's judgments 
upon Egypt, who with an unfaltering step had led 
the way through the dashing waters of the Red 
Sea, even Moses said, " I exceedingly fear and 
quake." 

It is said in the book of Deuteronomy, " the Lord 
spake unto you out of the midst of the fire ; ye heard 
the voice of the words, but ye saw no similitude, 
only ye heard a voice." And again : " Ask now of 
the days that are past which were before thee, since 
the day that God created man upon the earth, 
and ask from the one side of heaven unto the 
other, whether there hath been any such thing as 
this great thing is or hath been heard like it. Did 
ever people hear the voice of God speaking out 
of the midst of the fire as thou hast heard it and 
live?" 

But more wonderful than even the uttered voice of 
the Almighty, is the fact that with his own hand he 
wrote these ten commandments, a fact to which the 
testimony of the Bible is full and direct. " The Lord 
said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mountain 
and I will give thee tables of stone which I have 
written P And in another place we are told that he 
gave unto Moses upon Mount Sinai " two tables of 
testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of 
God." 

In these commandments, which were designed 
for all people, we have a summary of the most sub- 
lime and faultless system of morality. Here every 
possible duty is inculcated, every form of vice forbid- 
den. Fifteen hundred years later, our Lord at Jeru- 



MOSES. 137 

salem confirmed these precepts by his own personal , 
authority, styling those that inculcate piety toward 
God " the great commandment," and declaring those 
that command charity toward all men " like unto 
it," and adding, " On these two hang all the law and 
the prophets." 



138 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTEE X. 

THE BORDERS OF CANAAN. 

We left Moses in communion with God on the 
smoking summit of Mount Sinai. On coming down 
from that awful interview he found the people danc- 
ing round a golden calf, an idol made for them at 
their earnest request by Aaron. It was a strange 
sight ; a wonderful transition from the solemnity and 
terror of the thick cloud, the thunderings and light- 
nings and loud resounding trumpets that indicated 
the presence of the unseen God. It is not strange 
that at this unexpected sight, this wanton and unpre- 
cedented and outrageous act of idolatry, that Moses 
in horror at the sight, and angry, (for it is said that 
his wrath waxed hot,) should throw down the two 
tables of stone written on both sides by the finger of 
God and dash them in pieces. On account of this 
grievous sin the Almighty had threatened utterly to 
destroy the people. He is represented as saying to 
Moses, " Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot 
against them, and that I may consume them, and I 
will make of thee a great nation." But Moses inter- 
cedes in their behalf, and at his entreaty the great 
mass of the people are spared, although three thou- 
sand of the ringleaders suffer death. 

As a further punishment the Lord threatens to 
leave the people to the guidance of an angel ; " For," 
says he, " I will not go up in the midst of thee, for 



MOSES. 139 

thou art a stiffnecked people." Again Moses tries 
the power of interceding prayer. Of what avail can 
be the presence and guidance of an angel, a mere 
creature '( " If thy presence go not with rne, carry us 
not up hence." As if he had said, " Leave us not, 
O Lord, even though it be to the care of an angel ; 
but be thou with us." This was the effectual fer- 
vent prayer of which St. James speaks. It was im- 
portunate prayer, like that which Jesus Christ en- 
joins in the parable of the unjust judge, and which 
we see exemplified in the wrestling of Jacob when 
as a prince he prevailed with God and gained the 
blessing. And the Lord said unto Moses, " I will do 
this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast 
found grace in my sight." But Moses is not satisfied, 
though God has heard and answered his prayer not 
once only but again and again. And this is just the 
nature of that kind of prayer which God delights in. 
The more it receives the more it seeks. A blessing 
bestowed is but an argument to ask another bless- 
ing. And thus God would have it. He is not weary 
in the bestowment of blessings. 

And now every one of his requests in behalf of his 
people having been granted, Moses sends up a petition 
for himself: "I beseech thee show me thy glory." 
This was not a prayer to die, nor to see God with 
natural eye ; no man hath nor can so see him. Nor to 
behold his glory as seen in creation. The purpose of 
the question may be gathered from the answer to his 
prayer : " I will make all my goodness pass before 
thee." It was then a prayer for a more sensible man- 
ifestation of that attribute which constitutes the 



140 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEKS. 

essential glory of God, his goodness. It was first the 
shedding abroad of that love in his own heart, and 
then the manifestation of his infinite goodness to the 
children of men. The proclamation as he passed by 
was in wonderful language, teaching that the pecul- 
iar glory of God is his goodness. " The Lord passed 
by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord 
God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abund- 
ant in goodness and truth ; keeping mercy for thou- 
sands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." 
After this display of God's glory Moses again went up 
into the mount, where in infinite condescension Je- 
hovah again transcribed the Ten Commandments on 
two tables of stone. There also, during forty days, 
he received from the Almighty directions for the gov- 
ernment of the people and the laws which were to 
regulate the Israelitish worship until that dispensa- 
tion should be done away by the advent of Christ, 
the promised Messiah. 

One very remarkable circumstance connected with 
this interview is spoken of by St. Paul as indicating 
the better dispensation in which we live. When 
Moses came down from the mount his face shone with 
such a wonderful dazzling brightness that the people 
could not look upon it. He was obliged to cover it 
with a vail. So says the apostle. Even to this day 
when the writings of Moses are read the vail is upon 
their heart ; that is, they do not understand the spir- 
itual meaning of his teachings, nor see how in them 
all, as in all the writings of the Old Testament, a 
coming Saviour is foreshadowed and the glory of the 
world's salvation is prefigured, But we 2 who live ia 



MOSES. 141 

these latter days, we who have been led by the Spirit 
and made acquainted with the grace and mercy of 
Christ, we all, with open face, behold as in a glass 
the glory of the Lord, and are changed into the same 
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
the Lord. 

And now the time of their tarrying at Mount Si- 
nai is ended. The direction is given for their onward 
march. They had been nearly a year at rest in that 
most barren and rugged region, their wants continu- 
ally supplied by the hand of their heavenly Father, 
and the evidence of his presence among them con- 
stantly visible. The cloudy pillar is miraculously 
lifted from the encampment, and they follow its guid- 
ance for three days until they reached the wilderness 
of Paran. About this time a stranger makes his ap- 
pearance in the camp of Israel. He is an Arabian, 
well known indeed to Moses and by him gladly wel- 
comed. It is Jethro, his wife's father. He is not 
only kindly received, but invited to become an Israel- 
ite, and to journey with them to the promised land. 
" Come thou with us," said Moses, " and we will do 
thee good, for the Lord hath spoken good concerning 
Israel." 

We have had several illustrations of the ingrati- 
tude of the people for whom God had done so much ; 
and here again their discontent and murmuring break 
forth anew. They begin now to find fault with that 
which when it first appeared was most eagerly sought 
after. God continued still to provide for them daily 
manna, angels' food as the Psalmist calls it. It was a 
luxury at first ; now it has become loathsome. " We 



142 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

remember," say they, " tlie fish which we did eat in 
Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks 
and the onions and the garlic ; but now our soul is 
dried away ; there is nothing but this manna before 
our eyes." Strange inconsistency ! They remember 
their Egyptian delicacies, but they forget the Egypt- 
ian taskmasters ; they do not remember their bond- 
age and their bitter groanings ; they pretend to have 
forgotten the oppression by which their lives were 
made bitter from day to day. But their conduct has 
its counterpart in our own experience. How prone 
are we to murmur at our lot in life, to think lightly 
of the blessings which surround us and to forget what 
great things God has done for us. There are those, 
too, who started for the land of Canaan and jour- 
neyed well for a season, but who grow weary and 
long to go back to the house of bondage. They are 
tired of the bread of life. They pant for the pleas- 
ures of sin. They remember the enjoyments of 
Egypt. Some even measure their steps back again 
and go willingly into the bondage of sin. Of such 
the fearful language is spoken, " Their last state is 
worse than their first." 

The Lord, it is said, heard the murmurings of the 
people, and he directed Moses to say unto them, " Ye 
have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Who shall 
give us flesh to eat, and ye have said it was well with 
us in Egypt. Now the Lord will give you flesh, and 
ye shall eat not one day, nor two days, nor five 
days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole 
month. Ye shall eat until it becomes loathsome to 
you." This declaration astonished Moses even after 



MOSES. 143 

all that lie had. seen of the wonder-working power of 
God. Even his faith is staggered by the promise of 
such a miracle. " Behold," says he, " there are six 
hundred thousand footmen, to say nothing of women 
and children, and thou hast said, I will give them 
flesh for a whole month ! " Then he asks, as if utter- 
ly incredulous and unbelieving, " Shall the flocks and 
herds be slain for them, or shall all the fish of the sea 
be gathered together for them ? " We have seen sev- 
eral instances of the familiarity existing between 
Moses and his God ; nothing however equal to this, 
and yet God bears with him. He talks to him as 
one friend talketh to another. " Is the Lord's hand 
waxed short ? Is his power diminished % Thou shalt 
see whether my word will come to pass." And it 
did come to pass. Not only did Moses see it, but the 
whole multitude of Israel saw it and wondered. 

Immense quantities of quails, a bird noted for its 
delicacy as food, came up in all parts of the encamp- 
ment. For two whole days and a night the people 
were engaged in gathering these birds, and a full 
month's supply of food was obtained. But punish- 
ment followed speedily after this display of God's 
goodness. A deadly plague carried off multitudes of 
those who had murmured, and many died even while 
the flesh for which they had lusted was between 
their teeth. Grievous as was this affliction, a still 
heavier trial awaits the leader of the host of Israel, 
the meek and modest Moses. The trial comes now 
from his own household. Envy and jealousy spring 
up in the hearts of his brother and sister. Aaron 
seems not to have forgotten the rebuke he received 



144: OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

for his absurdly wicked conduct in manufacturing the 
golden calf, and Miriam takes part with him profess- 
edly on account of the Arabian woman whom Moses 
had married. The real cause of the quarrel was 
envy of the peculiar favor with which God regarded 
their brother. " And they said, Hath the Lord in- 
deed spoken only by Moses ? Hath he not spoken 
also by us % Are we not in his favor also, and have 
we not equal right to be regarded as leaders of the 
hosts of Israel ? " The Lord himself speedily an- 
swered that question by confirming the authority of 
Moses, and by a manifestation of his anger against 
Aaron and Miriam. She was punished by a sore 
disease, the loathsome leprosy, and was only healed 
at the intercession of Moses, and the proud spirit of 
Aaron was subdued. He confessed his fault and 
sought forgiveness. And he was readily forgiven, 
for, as it is stated in giving an account of this quar- 
rel, " the man Moses was very meek above all the 
men which were upon the face of the earth." 

And now they have almost reached the end of 
their journey ; they are on the borders of Canaan. 
From the tops of the surrounding hills they can gaze 
upon the promised land. The people are exulting in 
the prospect of soon finding a peaceful home and 
of resting from their toil. There, in the wilderness, 
in the neighborhood of the River Jordan, the people 
who came forth less than two years ago emancipated 
bondmen from Egypt, are now becoming impatient 
for the order to cross the stream. Why do they not 
at once go up and possess it ? The answer is easy. 
They had sent chosen men across the stream to spy 



MOSES. 145 

out the land; "Week after week has passed since 
their departure. The spies do not return. There is 
well-grounded anxiety for their safety. It is possible 
that they will never come back. They may have 
been put to death by the Canaanites. Such are some 
of the dread forebodings of the people ; but at length, 
when forty days have passed, the news flies from 
tent to tent, " They come ! they come ! " Men and 
women, old and young, go forth to meet them. The 
whole twelve, one from each tribe, have returned in 
safety. At the head of the little band are Caleb, of 
the tribe of Judah, and Joshua, of the tribe of Ephra- 
im. These bring with them specimens of the pro- 
ducts of the promised land. They have figs and 
grapes and pomegranates, a cheering goodly sight for 
men to look upon who have been living so long amid 
the barren sands of the desert. 

" It is," say they, " it is indeed a goodly land, a 
land of corn and oil and wine." How now do the 
hearts of the wearied pilgrims exult and dance for 
joy. No more long and wearisome marches; no 
more anxious night-watches ; no more wars or rumors 
of wars ; but peace and joy and plenteousness, and 
safe and quiet homes. Yes, all these things are 
promised. They are within reach. But just now 
the scene suddenly changes. Instead of joy and 
gladness there is bitter lamentation. Despair takes 
the place of exulting hope, and loud murmurings 
succeed their shouts of exultation. Ten of the 
twelve who have returned from spying out the land 
bring an evil report against it. They admit that 

it is indeed a fertile and pleasant country, a land 

10 



146 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

flowing with milk and honey, but then the inhab- 
itants are men of war, men of gigantic stature ; we 
were but as grasshoppers in their sight. They are 
too many for ns and too powerful. We shall inevi- 
tably be destroyed if we attempt to enter that prom- 
ised land. 

Listening to these faint-hearted cowards, a panic 
seizes the entire people. They lift up their voices 
and weep bitter tears. In vain is heard the ringing 
remonstrances of Caleb and Joshua : " Let us go up 
at once and possess the land ; we are well able to 
overcome it." Instead of listening to these true- 
hearted men, the people threaten to stone them to 
death. " Would God," is the cry of some, " would 
God that we had died in the land of Egypt ! " 
"Would God," say others, "that we had died in this 
wilderness ! " And now they consult together as to 
the propriety of making a new captain who shall 
lead them back through the wilderness to the land 
of Egypt. Strange infatuation ! Terrible illustra- 
tion of unbelief! of that dark and damning sin so 
bitterly denounced all through the book of God. 
They had seen wonderful displays of Jehovah's pow- 
er. They had his oft-repeated promise that he 
would be with them, and that he would bring them 
into that goodly land. But all was forgotten. The 
dread image of the giants, the shadows of the terrible 
sons of Anak, strike terror to their souls; and the 
result is that not one of these discontented unbeliev- 
ers is permitted to enter the promised land ; or as 
the apostle has it, " They could not enter in because 
of unbelief." 



MOSES. 147 

Moses now, by God's direction, led the people back 
into the wilderness, because God had determined 
that none of that generation of man, save only Caleb 
and Joshua, should ever enter the land of Canaan. 
For eight and thirty years they wander from place 
to place in the desert till all their carcasses had fall- 
en in the wilderness, after which God fulfilled his 
own promise and brought Israel into Canaan. 



148 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTER XI. 

HIS DEATH. ■ 

There are several remarkable incidents in the 
latter part of the career of Moses which deserve our 
passing notice. Soon after the decree of God that 
the men of that generation should not enter the prom- 
ised land, but that it should be given to their chil- 
dren, a conspiracy was formed against Moses by two 
hundred and fifty of the principal men of Israel. 
They are called "princes of the assembly, famous in 
the congregation, men of renown." The names of 
the leaders of this conspiracy are left on record, Ko- 
rah, Dathan, and Abiram, and their dreadful end is 
told with solemnity and evident truthfulness. Their 
object was to displace Moses from the position which 
God had given him as leader of the hosts of Israel, 
and they make known their intention by the most 
abusive and injurious accusations. For a moment 
Moses seems to lose his temper as he listens to their 
insulting language, but only for a moment. He re- 
members that it is not against himself so much as 
against his God that these men rebel. In their pres- 
ence and in the hearing of the people, with the calm 
consciousness of integrity and innocence, Moses 
speaks : " I have not taken upon myself this office ;" 
and " Hereby shall ye know that the Lord hath sent 
me. If these men die the common death of all men, 
then the Lord hath not sent me ; but if the Lord 



MOSES. 149 

make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth and 
swallow them up with all that appertain to them, 
and they go down quick into the pit, then ye shall 
understand that these men have provoked the Lord," 
Scarcely had he ceased speaking when, to the unut- 
terable horror of the people, and in dreadful attesta- 
tion of his truthfulness and integrity, the earth did 
open her mouth, and swallowed up Korah and his 
companions and all that belonged to them. They 
went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed 
upon them and they perished. Nor did the matter 
stop here. As the multitude gazed awe-struck upon 
this terrible sight and trembled for their own safety, 
fire came down from heaven and consumed the rest 
of the two hundred and fifty who had entered into 
this conspiracy. 

And now we come to the one act in the life of 
Moses in which he so forgot himself as to speak un- 
advisedly with his lips. The people were in a part 
of the great desert where they could find no water. 
As usual, they began to murmur and find fault. The 
Lord directed Moses to speak to a rock, not to smite 
the rock as on a former occasion at Horeb, but simply 
to speak, " and the water," said the Lord, " shall 
gush forth." Hastily, then, instead of doing as di- 
rected, Moses cried out, " Hear now, ye rebels, must 
we fetch you water out of this rock ? " So saying he 
smote the rock twice, and the water came forth 
abundantly. " The spirit of Moses was provoked," 
says the Psalmist, and he spake unadvisedly. God 
was angry with him, and for this lack of faith and 
rashness of conduct he declared that the honor of 



150 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEES. 

leading the people into the promised land should not 
be his, but should devolve upon Joshua. 

About this time Moses was called to another 
affliction. His brother Aaron, who had been associ- 
ated with him in all his labors, was called away by 
death. Calmly on the top of Mount Hor, in full view 
of the people, Aaron breathes forth his spirit, and 
Moses is left alone, for his sister Miriam, she who 
was instrumental in putting Moses, when an infant, 
into the family of the King of Egypt ; Miriam, who 
led the anthems of the people as they sang to the 
Lord when they had passed over the Red Sea; 
Miriam, the prophetess, as she is called, had been 
called away some time previously, and had gone, not 
to the promised land, but to that better inheritance 
of which Canaan was a shadow and a type. 

And now, for a few moments, let me direct your 
thoughts away from the wilderness in which the Is- 
raelites wandered, some fifteen hundred years after 
these events, to an interview between a greater than 
Moses and a certain Jewish ruler. The interview 
took place by night. The great man had heard that 
Jesus had performed miracles. There was a rumor 
afloat also that this reputed son of a carpenter was 
the long-promised Messiah. In answer to the ruler's 
questions Jesus tells him about the doctrine of the new 
birth, the absolute necessity of being born again. 
Then for the first time he makes known with great 
clearness the object for which he came into the world. 
Then and there he uttered that ever memorable and 
glorious truth : " God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believ- 



MOSES. 151 

eth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life. For God sent not his Son into the world to 
condemn the world ; but that the world through him 
might be saved." To our ears there is nothing 
strange in this announcement. We have heard it so 
often that it mates but little impression upon us. 
But to the Jewish ruler it was a piece of information 
that well repaid him for his- trouble in seeking out 
the great Teacher. It. is scarcely possible to imagine 
how such a statement would affect us did we hear it 
for the first time. With fixed and earnest attention 
the ruler continues to listen, and we mav be assured 
that late as it was before he returned home, he did 
not go to rest until he had searched the Scriptures to 
ascertain what could be the meaning of what seemed 
an enigma as to the mode in which this salvation was 
to be effected. Jesus had said, and this is the first 
intimation he had given of the plan by which man 
was to be saved : " As Moses lifted up the serpent in 
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be 
lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." 

Here we may properly pause to look at the literal 
fact in the case, and at the illustration afforded of the 
method of man's salvation by Jesus Christ. The fact 
referred to occurred soon after the death of Aaron. 
Fiery serpents were sent among the people. Many 
were bitten^ and many died. In the midst of the 
agony of the dying, and the sorrows of the bereaved, 
the people humble themselves and pray ; and Moses 
intercedes with God in their behalf. And the Lord 
said unto Moses, " Make a serpent of brass, and set it 



152 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

upon a pole," which was done accordingly. The 
proclamation went forth through the encampment : 
Bring out the dying among those who have been bit- 
ten by the fiery serpents, no matter whether they be 
young or old, high or low, rich or poor ; nay, no mat- 
ter how far the disease has progressed, how weak and 
exhausted the sufferers ; if there be life enough yet 
remaining to enable them merely to raise their eyes 
and look, they shall be healed and restored to perfect 
health. And now what a spectacle is presented ! The 
sick and the dying are brought forth to a position 
from which they can see this brazen image. They 
lift their eyes toward it. In the very act, the healing 
power descends. There is joy and gladness every- 
where through the encampment. Children are prais- 
ing God for the restoration of their parents; and 
fathers and mothers unite in alleluias because their 
diseased and dying little ones are suddenly and thor- 
oughly healed. Are there any there who decline to 
avail themselves of the proffered remedy ? who refuse 
to look and live ? Some, possibly ; not many we must 
think. And now, says the blessed Son of God, as 
that serpent was lifted up, and those who looked 
upon it lived ; so the Saviour of the world will be 
lifted up ; so they ^who look to him shall live ; in his 
own expressive language, " shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life." There seemed to be little connec- 
tion between merely looking at the image and the 
healing power, and yet there was no other method of 
cure. Those who refused to look died. So with the 
cross of Christ and Him who expired upon it ; they 
who look to Jesus live, those who refuse perish ; per- 



MOSES. 153 

ish not for any lack of power in Christ to save them, 
but for refusing to receive salvation in the way which 
God offers it. Many now who read these words con- 
tinue to refuse to look to Jesns dying on the cross 
until it is too late, and so find themselves at last so 
far off that through eternal ages they may look in 
vain and find no cross on which to fix their gaze. 
Rather be ours the language, 

" Stung by the scorpion, sin, 

My poor expiring soul 
The healing sound drinks in, 

And is at once made whole. 
See there my Lord upon the tree, 
I hear, I feel he died for me." 
• 

And now we have nothing more to say of the life 
of Moses. In the course of these pages we have 
touched merely upon the more prominent points in 
his eventful and wonderful life ; not on his account 
merely have you been invited to review his history, 
but that from his history you might get clearer and 
more distinct views of Him to whom Moses in the 
dark days in which he lived bore such unequivocal, 
such glorious witness, and you will bear me witness 
that these pages have been full of Christ ; and with 
Christ, Christ on the cross, Christ crucified for us, 
it is fitting that our remarks should come to an end. 
By way of appendix, however, and as a token of re- 
spect for the memory of a good man, a man who oc- 
cupies confessedly on all hands the first place in the old 
dispensation, we may dwell a moment upon his last 
hours ; we may go to his funeral ; we may inquire 
into his passage across the cold river of death ; we may 



154 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTEKS. 

ask the question which above all others is most thrill- 
ingly affecting at every funeral, "Where is he now ? 

The fall period of one hundred and twenty years 
had rolled away since, a helpless babe, he was placed 
in his little cradle upon the bosom of the Nile. 
Blessed with a vigorous constitution, even at the 
advanced age which he has now reached, " his eye is 
not dim, nor his natural force abated." He is not 
bowed down by infirmity, nor has sickness weakened 
his physical frame. In the land of Moab, and again 
in sight of the promised land, the fact is revealed to 
him that his earthly pilgrimage is near its end. For 
the people he has led so long, and is now about to 
leave, he composes an ode known ever, afterward as 
the " Song of Moses," in which he celebrates the 
goodness, the majesty, and the glory of Israel's God. 
It is a song of holy triumph, and reminds one of the 
exulting notes of another saint, the most eminent in 
the New Testament, as Moses was in the Old : " I 
am ready to be offered, and the time of my departure 
is at hand. I have finished my course, I have fought 
the fight, I have kept the faith." One request and 
one only does Moses make. He has led the people 
a second time to the borders of the promised land. 
His request is, and it is a very natural one, and seems 
very reasonable : " Let me go over and see the good 
land that is beyond Jordan." Was that request 
granted ? Partly it was. He saw the goodly land. 
Wonderfully was he favored. He went up to the top 
of Pisgah, the highest peak of Mount Nebo, and there 
the Lord met him, and as it is written, " showed 
him all the land unto the utmost sea. And the Lord 



MOSES. 155 

said unto him, This is the land which I swore unto 
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob. I have caused 
thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go 
over thither." His work was done. The task of 
leading the people into that land was reserved for 
Joshua ; but Moses saw it, saw it from one end to the 
other, even as God only could make its beauty visi- 
ble. There, upon the top of that mount, his spirit 
passed away, and his body was left for burial. I said 
we might go to his funeral. Yes, to his funeral ; but 
we may not go to his grave. His was a burial such 
as mortal man before or since has never had. " The 
Lord buried him in a valley of the land of Moab, but 
no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day." 

Now go with me for a moment to another mount- 
ain. It is not Nebo, nor Pisgah, nor Sinai. It is a 
mount within the limits of the promised land. St. Pe- 
ter calls it the holy mount. It is called Mount Tabor. 
"Why have I brought you to this sacred spot ? Listen 
a moment. See you there Jesus with his three favor- 
ite disciples. It is a glorious sight. It is the scene 
of the transfiguration. The disciples are overpowered 
with the grandeur and the glory of the sight, and one of 
them exclaims, " Lord, it is good for us to be here ! " 
But still they gaze and wonder. And now two 
others make their appearance. They enter into con- 
versation with Jesus. And the three disciples listen. 
"What is the subject of their conversation ? Just what 
we should suppose it would be. It is about the Sav- 
iour's death, " which he was about to accomplish at 
Jerusalem." But who are these two strangers, and 
whence came they \ Both these questions are satis- 



156 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

factorily answered. The more venerable of the two 
is this Moses of whom we have been detailing the 
history, and the other is one who lived some five 
hundred years after him, the Tishbite prophet, Eli- 
jah. Do yon ask now where Moses went when his 
Maker so mysteriously buried the clay that for one 
hundred and twenty years enshrined his undying 
spirit ? Evidently he went from the top of Pisgah to 
that glory which Christ had with the Father before 
his incarnation ; to that heaven whither Elijah, when 
his course was ended, was carried by horsemen and 
chariots of fire. From that abode of the blessed the 
two were permitted to come that they might do hon- 
or to Christ on that memorable night and incident- 
ally answer a question relative to the homes of the 
departed, the dwelling-place of those who gained 
through grace the victory in the parting hour. 

Let me detain you yet a moment at this point. 
One of the three disciples who was present at the 
transfiguration lived like Moses to a good old age, 
and in the latter part of it was most wonderfully 
favored by having shown to him, not the promised 
land, but long and transporting view^s of that heavenly 
city of which Canaan was a type. He saw it not 
from the top of Pisgah, but from a desolate island 
whither he had been banished. Very minute are his 
descriptions of what he saw and heard. I refer only 
to this one point because of its intimate connection 
with the subject in hand. " I saw there," says St. 
John, for it is of him I speak, " I saw, as it were, a 
sea of glass mingled with fire ;" that appears to be 
the nearest attempt he could make to a description 



MOSES. 157 

of what from its wondrous glory was indescribable. 
There upon that sea of glass, mingled with fire as it 
seemed, stood a multitude who had gained the final 
victory. " And they had in their hands the harps of 
God, and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of 
God, and the song of the Lamb." The song of 
Moses ? They know him there. Where did they 
learn that song ? They loved the sentiments of that 
song before they went to their recompense. The 
words of it were familiar when first those golden 
harps were put into their hands, and then they joined 
the glorious anthem without a jarring note or one 
discordant sound. 

And now we have done with this mighty leader of 
Israel's host. We part with him, but not forever. 

" But not forever! Through the Saviour's grace, . 
That Saviour whose majestic voice was heard 
First at the burning bush, and then again 
On Sinai's sacred summit ; in gentler tones, 
Once more when pointing out the promised land, — 
Through thy all-conquering grace, Saviour divine ! 
Shall we meet with that meek and lowly man, 
That Moses, whose triumphant song in heaven 
We too with all the glorified, with harps 
Resounding, and in symphony divine 
May sing, ascribing glory to the Lamb, 
In ceaseless adoration." 



158 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



BALAAM. 



Theee have been, among critics and commentators, 
several different opinions relative to the strange his- 
tory and remarkable career of Balaam, the son of 
Bosor, or Beor, as he is called in the Old Testament. 
Some have regarded him as a mere magician or 
fortune-teller, an impudent deceiver and impostor. 
Others think that he was a false prophet, who was 
constrained to speak the truth against his will ; and 
yet others, that he was originally a true prophet, that 
he knew God and served him until led astray by 
covetousness and the love of money, when, like the 
traitor among the disciples of Jesus, he fell into that 
snare of the devil and became the willing servant and 
ally of the prince of darkness. This was evidently 
the opinion of the Israelites, and seems to be con- 
firmed by the writers of the New Testament. Saint 
Peter expressly calls him a prophet, without any inti- 
mation that he had no right to be so called, just as 
Judas is called an apostle even down to the time when 
he went by a halter to his own place, and the eleven 
met together for the purpose of choosing his suc- 
cessor. We shall see with what propriety Balaam 
has been called the Judas of the Old Testament, and 



BALAAM. 159 

what a striking parallel there is between the two 
characters. 

After their long and wearisome journey, the Israel- 
ites had at length reached the banks of Jordan, which 
alone separated them from Canaan, the promised 
land. They were within the territory of the King of 
Moab, who seems to have been terrified by their 
presence. He had heard of the victorious career of 
these strange people, how they had defeated with ter- 
rible slaughter the Amorites, and taken possession of 
their land from Arnon unto Jabbok, and how they 
had seized upon all the cities and villages in Hesh- 
bon. Still more alarming was the news that Og, the 
powerful king of Bashan, had been utterly overthrown 
with all his hosts by the army of Israel. " They 
smote him," says Moses, " and his sons and all his 
people until there was none left him alive." The 
King of Moab, whose name was Balak, had reason 
to be afraid of these victorious strangers who were 
now encamped within his territories, and it occurred 
to him that it would be wise if by any means he 
might secure supernatural assistance before meeting 
them on the battle-field. He seems to have been 
aware that the Israelites did not conquer in their own 
strength, and had an indistinct idea that the God they 
worshiped fought for them. Accordingly, having 
heard of Balaam, who had a great reputation as a 
prophet of the Most High, he sent messengers to his 
residence in Mesopotamia with royal presents, to in- 
duce him to comply with his request. That request 
was, " Come, I pray thee, and curse this people who 
have come out of Egypt, for they are too mighty for 



160 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

me. Come and curse them, for then peradventure I 
shall prevail against them, and drive them out of the 
land, for I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed 
and whom thou cursest is cursed." Balaam listened 
to the invitation, and gazed wistfully upon the valua- 
ble presents which they brought ; but that God whom 
he served forbade him to accede to the king's request. 
He said to Balaam, probably in a vision in the night, 
" Thou shalt not go w r ith them, thou shalt not curse 
the people, for the people are blessed." So Balaam 
rather reluctantly sends back the king's messengers, 
saying unto them, " The Lord refuseth to give me 
leave to go with you." Had he been hearty even at 
this time in his allegiance to his God, he would have 
told them at once, " The thing is impossible ; it cannot 
be done ; God hath forbidden it." Instead of that, he 
simply says, " The Lord refuseth to give me leave to 
go with you." When the King of Moab heard this 
answer, instead of desisting from his purpose, he sends 
other and more honorable messengers with promises 
of more abundant wealth and greater honor ; and this 
was his message to the prophet : " Let nothing, I 
pray thee, hinder thee from coming to me, for I will 
promote thee to very great honor, and I will do what- 
soever thou sayest : come, therefore, I pray thee and 
curse this people." Accordingly, on the morrow, 
although warned again by a messenger from heaven 
that he should not curse but bless the people, he starts 
very early, evidently with the intention to deceive 
either the King of Moab or the King of Heaven. 
He wanted the royal presents, they would make him 
rich and independent ; but he had not as yet the 



BALAAM. 161 

hardihood to suppose that he could deceive God. On 
his way one of the strangest incidents befell him. 
The sacred writer relates it without comment, and 
St. Peter confirms the story. The dumb ass speak- 
ing with a man's voice, rebuked the madness of the 
prophet. Astounded by this wonderful event, he 
was yet more terrified by another immediately follow- 
ing. This was the appearance of an angel standing 
directly in his way with a drawn sword in his hand. 
And Balaam saw that his wicked intention had been 
discovered, the secret of his soul had been found out. 
He humbled himself and confessed his sinful pur- 
pose. " If it displeases thee," he whines, I will 
turn back ;" and seeing that his villainous design was 
known, he bowed down his head and fell upon his 
face and begged forgiveness. But the angel told him 
to go on his way, on condition that he should utter 
only such words as the Lord might put into his lips. 
And so he did. And now the King of Moab with 
the money-loving prophet meet and offer sacrifices. 
They ascend a high hill, and Balaam beholds the 
armies of Israel. The king stands by waiting to hear 
the expected curse. Strange sounds fall upon his ears, 
as unexpected to him as were the mutterings of the 
dumb ass in the hearing of the prophet. It is said 
the Lord put words into Balaam's lips, and this is a 
part of his language : " How shall I curse whom God 
hath not cursed ? or how shall I defy whom the Lord 
hath not defied ? Who can count the dust of Jacob 
and the number of the fourth part of Israel ? " Then 
fall from the lips of the man who came to curse the 
people of God that pious prayer which has been so 



162 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

often repeated since in all parts of tlie world : " Let 
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last 
end be like his." With this language the Moabite 
was of course displeased, and reiterated the request 
for a curse. But Balaam, still under the prophetic 
influence, and probably not himself understanding 
what he said, exclaims, " How goodly are thy tents, 
O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel ! God is not 
a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he 
should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it ? 
or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good ? " 
More wonderful still is the further history of these 
proceedings. Balaam falls into a trance, but his eyes 
were open, and the sacred writer says the spirit of 
God fell upon him, and now he utters the memorable 
words : "I shall see him, but not now : I shall behold 
him, but not nigh." Of whom is that language 
spoken ? Listen further : " There shall come a star 
out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel." 

I do not pretend to explain fully these predictions, 
nor to answer the question why the Almighty put 
this language into the lips of Balaam. We have all 
heard of the scepter and the star, those symbols of 
royalty and dominion. We remember the prediction 
of Jacob on his death-bed : " The scepter shall not 
depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his 
feet, till Shiloh come ;" and the declaration of the 
Psalmist quoted by St. Paul : " Unto the Son he 
saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever : a 
scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy king- 
dom." Nor is it possible for us to forget who saw a 
star in the East which guided the wise men to the 



BALAAM. 163 

cradle at Bethlehem ; nor the day-star which, as Peter 
has it, arises in the heart ; nor to His language, whose 
utterance is found in the last chapter of the last book 
in the Bible : " I am the root and offspring of David, 
and the bright and morning star." But not to dwell 
on this figurative language, Balaam, the son of Bosor, 
seems at this period of his life to have been a man 
of practical piety, at any rate, capable of giving good 
advice whether he followed it himself or not. This 
point is brought out with great clearness by an in- 
spired prophet. If you turn to the sixth chapter of 
the book of Micah you will find him referring to the 
instructions of this Balaam, and holding up those 
instructions for the benefit of the people to whom he 
wrote ; for the benefit indeed of all people in all ages. 
Listen to the language of the Prophet Micah : " O my 
people, remember now what Balak king of Moab 
consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered 
him from Shittim unto Gilgal ; that ye may know 
the righteousness of the Lord." Then he relates the 
conversation between these men. The king of Moab 
asks, " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and 
bow myself before the high God ? shall I come before 
him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ? 
will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or 
with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? shall I give my 
first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body 
for the sin of my soul % " Now for the answer of Ba- 
laam, the son of Bosor : " He hath showed thee, O 
man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require 
of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
walk humbly with thy God \ " 



164 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

From all this language, the natural inference would 
be, " Truly this Balaam is a man of God," and yet 
the whole tenor of sacred writings is, he had fallen 
from his high estate ; the love of money had rooted 
out the love of God ; he loved the wages of unright- 
eousness. As it was in a later age when he who was 
numbered with the apostles of Christ, was treasurer 
of their little fund, and had wrought miracles in his 
Master's name, began to pilfer and to steal, and ended 
by selling Christ to his enemies for thirty pieces of 
silver, so with this smooth-spoken, oily-tongued proph- 
et. He loved God, but he loved money more. 
The death of the righteous was a thing to be desired ; 
but the gifts of the King of Moab, honor and wealth 
and the enjoyments of this life, were also greatly to 
be desired. In his judgment heaven was an attract- 
ive realm ; but in the mean time, with money, no mat- 
ter how obtained, this world might be very pleasant. 
So, on the second invitation, he goes with the messen- 
gers of the idolatrous king. It is in his heart to 
curse Israel and earn the promised wages. But God 
knew what was in his heart and hedged up his way. 
He pauses for a while. Conscience is at work within 
him. The loss of honor and wealth are in the one 
scale ; in the other, the anger of God ! But he goes 
on. He will steer a middle course. He will not 
curse those whom God hath not cursed. O no ! but 
he will go on. He builds an altar, in strict accord- 
ance with the custom of the heathen who blasphemed 
and dishonored Jehovah. He had not been forbidden 
in express terms to build an altar, nor to superintend 
the sacrifices of an idolater. He had only been for- 



BALAAM. 165 

bidden to curgfe Israel, and lie will not do that, un- 
less, indeed, there should be a very favorable oppor- 
tunity. He does not know what may happen. Pos- 
sibly there may be a relaxation on the part of the God 
he served. In view of so great a stake, who can tell 
but the Lord will allow him to become rich merely 
by uttering a curse which surely the Lord can con- 
vert into a blessing, and there will be no great harm 
done ? Or on the other hand, who can tell but what 
Balak, when he sees how willing Balaam is to do the 
cursing, remembers his long journey and his zeal in 
building the altar ; who can tell but what the gener- 
ous king will reward him even if he does not utter the 
curse with his lips, seeing that it is in his heart ? To 
his own unutterable surprise and the horror of Balak, 
the lips of God's prophet are compelled to utter only 
blessings. And now the goodly prospect vanishes 
from his vision. There is no hope of becoming sud- 
denly rich. He had been building on the sand. He 
had erected a castle in the air. It passes away like a 
morning dream. And what now ? Possibly nothing 
seems easier or more likely than that this prophet of 
the Most High will go to his home a wiser and a bet- 
ter man. He will serve God hereafter. He will re- 
pent of the wickedness that was in his heart. He 
will go to his grave in peace. The prayer put into 
his lips by the Holy Spirit will be answered. Ba- 
laam will die the death of the righteous and his last 
end will be peace. Alas, no. He found, as myriads 
have found since his day, that a return to virtue after 
wandering into wickedness is not easy, is not always 
even possible. How fallacious to suppose that man 



166 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 

can stop at his own will when lie has allowed himself 
to be carried downward by that tide which becomes 
more and more resistless in its course. " I thought," 
said one, 

" To act a solemn comedy, 
And to attain my own peculiar ends 
By some such mingled plot of good and ill 
As others weave ; but there arose a power 
Which grasped and snapped the thread of my device, 
And turned it to a net of ruin." 

So it was with Balaam, the son of Bosor. He went 
on from one degree of wickedness to another. The 
record of his entire career is scanty but fearful. It 
is said by Moses that he was not only hardened in sin 
himself, but that " he caused the Israelites to commit 
trespass against the Lord." The Evangelist John 
tells us that he cast a stumbling-block before the 
children of Israel. He was found in the ranks of 
their enemies, and that latter end which might have 
been peaceful, serene, and bright, was stormy and ter- 
ribly dark. He was slain in battle, and from the field 
of blood went up to read the record of his misspent 
life at the throne of judgment. 



ABEAHAM. 167 



ABRAHAM. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FATHEK OF THE FAITHFUL. 

It is said of Abraham, in the epistle to the Romans, 
that he believed God, and it, that is, his belief, was 
counted unto him for righteousness. 

To a delineation of his character and to his per- 
sonal history the sacred writer devotes more space 
than he has occupied with all who preceded him ; 
and throughout the Bible frequent reference is made 
to his faith and his obedience. He is styled the father 
of the faithful and the friend of God. 

Abraham was by birth a Chaldean, but the precise 
location of TJr, his birthplace, is unknown. It is sup- 
posed to have been in a district which lies above the 
confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates, which 
afterward became the seat of the great Babylonian 
monarchy. The inhabitants were idolaters, and wor- 
shiped the stars of heaven. To these Chaldean star- 
gazers is traced the origin of astronomical science ; 
and among them Sabianism, or the worship of the 
heavenly bodies, and other idolatries, had already 
greatly perverted the simple forms of the patriarchal 
religion, and obscured the great design of its typical 



168 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTEES. 

ceremonies. It is probable that Abraham in the 
early part of his life was himself an idolater, for 
although that fact is not distinctly stated, it is said 
that his fathers served other gods. 

He is first introduced to us when he had already 
reached his seventy-fifth year, and of his early life 
and of his conversion to the true religion we have 
no account upon which any dependence can be placed. 
The Jews fill up this space in the life of their great 
progenitor with many ingenious fictions. One of 
these, accounting for his conversion, I shall here sub- 
join as a specimen of their traditions : 

As Abraham was walking by night from the grotto 
where he was born to the city of Babylon, so runs 
the story, he gazed on the stars of heaven, and among 
them on the beautiful planet Venus. Behold, said 
he within himself, the God and Lord of the universe ! 
But the star set and disappeared, and Abraham felt 
that the Lord of the universe could not thus be liable 
to change. Shortly after he beheld the moon at the 
full. Lo, he cried, the Divine Creator, the manifest 
Deity ! but the moon sunk below the horizon, and 
Abraham made the same reflection as at the setting 
of the evening star. All the rest of the night he 
passed in profound rumination ; at sunrise he stood 
before the gates of Babylon, and saw the whole peo- 
ple prostrate in adoration before the great luminary 
of day. Wondrous orb, he exclaimed, thou surely 
art the Creator and Ruler of all nature ! but thou, 
too, hastest like the rest to thy setting ! neither then 
art thou my Creator, my Lord, or my God. 

While Abraham dwelt in Ur the God of glory ap- 



ABRAHAM. 169 

peared to him, in what manner we are not informed, 
but certainly in a way that was satisfactory to Abra- 
ham, and said unto him, " Get thee out from thy coun- 
try and from thy kindred, and go into the land which 
I shall show thee." In unhesitating obedience Abra- 
ham went out, not knowing whither he went. He 
was accompanied by his wife Sarah, Terah his father, 
his brother Nahor, and Lot, his nephew, a circum- 
stance which seems to indicate that they also had 
abandoned idolatry, and were now worshipers of the 
true God. They pitched their tents at first in Ha- 
ran, in Mesopotamia, an extensive tract of country so 
called from its lying between the great rivers, the 
Euphrates and the Tigris, and after remaining there 
a few years his father Terah died, at the age of two 
hundred and five years. 

Soon after this God again appeared to Abraham, 
and annexed to the command for his further removal 
the promise that he should become the father of a 
great nation, and that in him should all the families 
of the earth be blessed. That the latter part of this 
declaration had reference to the Messiah, the prom- 
ised seed of the woman, there can be no doubt. 
" Your father Abraham," said Jesus to the Jews, "re- 
joiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." 
How did he see the day of Christ \ I answer, he saw 
it by faith in God's promise ; he saw it, indeed, afar 
off as respects time, but believing in the word of Je- 
hovah, he was enabled to roll back the curtain of the 
future, and to rejoice in things to come as though they 
were already present. 

In obedience to this second call, Abraham departed 



170 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

■with, his wife and nephew into Palestine, then inhab- 
ited by the descendants of Ham, and called Canaan. 
" Unto thy seed," says the Almighty, " will I give 
this land," and there, as in every other place where 
Abraham sojourned, he built an altar unto the Lord ; 
that is, he avowed publicly his belief in the true God. 
He did this in the midst of idolatry and superstition, 
and is in this respect an exemplar of the wise man's 
injunction, " In all thy ways acknowledge God, and 
he shall direct thy paths." It is comparatively an 
easy matter to appear religious in the presence of 
those who fear God ; but, alas ! how many act as if 
ashamed of their profession, ashamed of their Re- 
deemer, when thrown into the company of the scorner 
and the skeptic ! 

While dwelling in Canaan, Abraham's faith was 
put to a severe test. The first famine of which his- 
tory gives any account occurred in that land so re- 
nowned for its remarkable fertility ; a famine sent by 
heaven as a punishment for the wickedness of the 
inhabitants ; as says the Psalmist, " He turneth 
rivers into a wilderness, and the water springs into 
dry ground ; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the 
wickedness of them that dwell therein." It was, 
says Moses, a grievous famine ; and a less lively faith 
than Abraham's would have been staggered at this 
unexpected event, and driven him back to his native 
land. 

During the prevalence of this famine Abraham re- 
tired with his possessions for a season into Egypt ; 
and while there, knowing the dissolute character of 
the Egyptians, he directed Sarah to call herself his 



ABRAHAM. 171 

sister, which assertion, although literally true, she 
being the daughter of Terah by another mother, was 
in fact and reality designed to make a false impres- 
sion, and consequently partook of the essence and 
the guilt of an untruth. His conduct in this respect 
is not, of course, held up for imitation ; and it is re- 
markable that iy the very act he fell into the danger 
which he had hoped thereby to avoid. As appears 
from the history, if he had told the whole truth in 
the first instance, he would have escaped that danger 
into which both himself and his wife were plunged 
by his unmanly prevarication. The sacred writer re- 
lates the simple fact, with its consequences, leaving us 
to deduce from it a practical lesson for our own guid- 
ance ; that lesson is that, in addition to the guilt of 
prevarication in the sight of God, it is always accom- 
panied by danger more or less to all who indulge it. 
Truth is a straight line, a plain path ; he who walks 
therein is safe, for God is there ; while he who wan- 
ders from this path, by direct falsehood, by equivoca- 
tion, or by the suppression of essential facts, entan- 
gles himself in a labyrinth wherein he may not hope 
for the protection or the blessing of the Almighty. 
Indeed, to leave out of the question the retributions 
of eternity, to say nothing even of peace of con- 
science or the approbation of God, the plain truth is 
always most easy, most safe, most honorable. 

Soon after the famine to which we have adverted 
Abraham returned to Canaan, where he again seeks 
and obtains the favor of God. He pitches his tent 
at Bethel, a city at that time called Luz, which word 
signifies an almond. It was so called, probably, from 



172 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

the number of almond-trees which grew in those 
parts. We shall see hereafter why the name was 
changed to Bethel. And there, says the sacred 
writer, where he had built an altar at first, he again 
calls upon the name of the Lord. Himself and his 
nephew Lot, for they still continued together, being 
blessed in their temporal affairs, and having become 
rich in the possession of flocks and herds, a quarrel 
arose between their respective herdsmen. In this 
matter the character of Abraham appears in an ami- 
able and instructive light. " Let there," says he, " be 
no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and be- 
tween my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, for we are 
brethren." We are brethren ! A touching remark, 
full of benignity and kindness, and giving one of the 
very best arguments against contention and strife. 
How would peace and harmony be promoted in the 
world, and especially in the Church and in the family 
circle, by a recurrence on the first buddings of alien- 
ated affection to the simple truth, ice are brethren; 
brethren, if not because seated around the same do- 
mestic fireside, still brethren because children of one 
common father and destined for one common home. 
Let there, therefore, be no strife between us. It is 
one of the strange anomalies of human nature, too, 
that just in proportion to the nearness of the con- 
tending parties is the strength, the bitterness, and the 
endurance of their animosity. A lawsuit between 
children of the same parents is frequently protracted 
until there is nothing left for either ; a family quar- 
rel is proverbial not less for its folly than its severity ; 
and when contention is fairly started among those 



ABRAHAM. 173 

who are united in Church fellowship, who have 
pledged themselves at the same altar to love each 
other with pure hearts fervently, it becomes very 
often a raging fire that many waters cannot* quench. 
Examples are abundant both in our own experience 
and on the page of history. I need not, therefore, 
dwell upon them, but would, if possible, so fix upon 
your minds the conduct of Abraham in this matter 
that it may prove a ruling principle in all after-life. 
Let there be no strife between thee and thy brother, 
thy fellow-disciple, or thy fellow-man, but as far as 
lieth in thee, live peaceably with all men. But this 
will require sacrifices ; I shall be obliged to yield 
sometimes even when I know that I am in the right. 
Yery likely. It is better, far better, in any supposa- 
ble case, to suffer wrong than to do wrong, and pa- 
tient endurance is godlike. Mark here the conduct 
of Abraham. Instead of contesting the point with 
his nephew, or. even of inquiring into the merits of 
the quarrel between their respective herdsmen, he 
proposes an amicable separation, and he does this in 
a manner that exhibits in a pleasing light his humil- 
ity, his moderation, and his love of peace. " Behold," 
says he, " the land is all before thee ; take thy choice ; 
if thou wilt take the left hand, I will take the right ; 
or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to 
the left." Abraham was the older man. On that 
ground, if on no other, he might have assumed the 
right to choose for himself first. If one must yield, 
the common courtesies of life would have said it 
ought to be the nephew, the younger. But the choice 
was offered to Lot, and he took it. He lifted up his 



174 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan that it was 
well watered everywhere, even as the garden of the 
Lord ; and Lot chose all the plain of Jordan ; and he 
journeyed east, and they separated themselves the one 
from the other. 

Soon after this event we are introduced to Abra- 
ham in a new character : as a man of war. Intelli- 
gence is brought to him that by a confederacy of the 
petty kings of the Euphrates and the adjoining coun- 
tries Lot and his family have been taken prisoners 
and carried into captivity. With great promptness 
he summons together his numerous attendants, " and 
we behold," says Hunter, " the good old man exchang- 
ing his shepherd's crook for the warrior's spear, and 
rushing with all the ardor and impetuosity of youth 
upon the insolent oppressor." In this important and 
interesting transaction we know not which most to 
admire, the strong natural affection which prompted 
him to fly to the rescue of his nephew, his honest 
indignation at violence and wrong, the skill with 
which he planned his enterprise, the boldness with 
which he executed it, the moderation with which he 
exercised his victory, or his disinterestedness in 
declining any share of the fruits of it for himself. 
Taken all together, they constitute unequivocal and 
brilliant proof of a mind truly noble and dignified. 
This is the same man who, for the sake of peace 
with a brother, gave up a just claim to a junior and 
inferior, who now, in the cause of the oppressed and 
the injured, is not afraid to attack a numerous host, 
headed by princes and flushed with victory. With 
whom, then, asks a celebrated writer, does true. mag- 



ABKAHAM. 175 

nanimity reside ? Surely with the humble and con- 
descending. The man who has subdued his own 
spirit is invincible. Behold in this the nature and 
the foundation of true courage. It is not to make 
light of life ; it is not to rush like the horse into the 
battle. It is to fear God ; it is to be calm and com- 
posed in danger; it is to- possess hope beyond the 
grave ; it is to be superior to the pride and incapable 
of the insulting triumph of success. See, too, how 
the kindred graces and virtues delight to reside in 
unity and harmony in the bosom of a good man ! Is 
a man pious % Then he is humble. Is he humble ? 
Then meek and condescending ; then bold, then just, 
then generous, then merciful. The good man is 
aptly compared by the sacred writers to a tree, a tree 
which beareth fruit, and this fruit hangs in clusters, 
never solitary and alone. 

The King of Sodom said unto Abraham, " Give 
me the persons, and take the goods to thyself;" evi- 
dently intending that Abraham should thus be repaid 
for his toil and his success. But Abraham replied, 
" I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, the most 
high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I 
will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, 
and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest 
thou shouldst say, I have made Abraham rich." It 
was on his return from this exploit that Abraham 
was met by one of high dignity yet of a mysterious 
character. He is called Melchizedek, and united in 
his own person the offices of priest and king. He 
was King of Salem, supposed by some to have been 
the same city which was afterward called Jerusalem, 



176 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

and a priest of the most high God. By this it 
would seem that even among the idolaters of that 
age there were those who retained the knowledge of 
the true God, and who worshiped Jehovah. Into 
the mysteries which surround this man's character I 
enter not. That he was a type of Christ, who is our 
great high priest, and King of Salem, or king of 
peace, as the word Salem literally means, is the gen- 
eral opinion founded on the express declaration of 
the apostle. " Jesus," says he, " made a priest for- 
ever after the order of Melchizedek ;" and in this he 
appears to have merely quoted from the prophetic 
declaration of the Psalmist : " The Lord hath sworn 
and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever, after 
the order of Melchizedek." The Scripture narrative 
informs us that on this occasion he came forth to con- 
gratulate Abraham on his success ; that they inter- 
changed mutual acts of courtesy and kindness. Mel- 
chizedek brought him refreshments of bread and 
wine, and as a priest pronounced upon the patri- 
arch the benediction of his God. In return Abraham 
acknowledged in him the authority of Jehovah ; and 
as a token of gratitude for his success, and an ac- 
knowledgment that he owed his all to God, he gave 
tithes of everything to Melchizedek. 

Soon after this we are introduced to another trans- 
action which shows in a striking light the intimacy 
subsisting between Abraham and his God. He had 
left, as we have seen, his native land under a special 
promise that God would multiply his descendants as 
the stars of heaven, and that in him should all the 
nations of the earth be blessed. Years had elapsed 



ABRAHAM. 177 

since the giving of that promise ; it was yet unful- 
filled, and to all human appearance not likely to be 
fulfilled. And Abraham had ventured to question 
the Lord. " Seeing," said he, " I am childless and a 
stranger, Eliezer of Damascus is likely to be my heir ; 
what wilt thou give unto me, or how shall thy prom- 
ise be fulfilled ? " In reply to this inquiry the Word 
of the Lord, it is said, appeared unto him in a vision 
by night and said, " "Fear not, Abraham, I am thy 
shield and thy exceeding great reward; and he 
brought him forth and said, Look now toward heaven 
and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them ; 
and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." Who 
was it that thus appeared to the patriarch and ad- 
dressed him in this language ? Who declared him- 
self his shield, that is, his protector and defense, and 
his exceeding great reward? or, as the Hebrew 
might have been rendered, his superlatively mul- 
tiplied reward ? Moses says it was the Word of the 
Lord who thus appeared and made these promises. 
In the New Testament, and especially in John's Gos- 
pel, we have the fall explanation of this term. We 
are told there that the Word was God, and that the 
Word was made flesh. And these assertions, taken in 
connection with the passage before us, at once attest 
Abraham's acquaintance with the promised Messiah, 
and the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. 

It was the Word of the Lord that appeared to Abra- 
ham ; it was the Word that was made flesh ; it was 
the Word to whom Abraham addressed the language 
of supreme adoration, calling him Lord God ; and, 

finally, it was in this same Lord that it is said Abra- 

12 



178 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

ham believed, and it was counted to him for right- 
eousness. 

Having arrived at this period of our narrative, let 
us pause and dwell a moment on the plan of salvation 
by faith now explicitly declared and revealed with 
still increasing clearness as the Sun of righteousness 
arose higher and higher in the moral heavens, and at 
length reached its meridian glory, when there was a 
voice heard upon our earth proclaiming, " I am the 
resurrection, and the life : he that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die." And 
what was Abraham's faith that was counted to him 
for righteousness ? An answer to this question will 
settle another that has given rise to much controversy, 
and perplexed some minds which were honestly seek- 
ing after truth, namely, What is it to believe in. 
Christ ? Let us review for a moment the history of 
the father of the faithful. When he was called to go 
forth from the home of his fathers he knew not 
whither he was going ; whether his condition would 
be bettered by the exchange or not; whether he 
should meet with friends or enemies. Why, then, 
did he go ? I answer, first, because he had satisfac- 
tory evidence that God called him ; and, secondly, 
because he had confidence in the ability and the will- 
ingness of God to perform his promise. His view 
of the character of Jehovah gave him a tranquil assur- 
ance that he would do all things well. This was the 
faith of Abraham. How did he give evidence of its 
existence? I answer, in the only way in which it 
was possible to give this evidence, by obeying God. 



ABKAHAM. 179 

Let us apply the case to ourselves : we are sinners, 
condemned by the law of God, unhappy now, and 
likely to be unhappy forever. Unto us there is a 
voice that calls, " Come unto me, and I will give you 
rest." Who is it that calls % It is the voice of the 
blessed Jesus, the same voice which Abraham heard 
in the plains of Chaldea. What does he require of 
us ? Not to forsake our homes, to bid adieu to our 
native land, but to surrender ourselves into his hands, 
to give ourselves up entirely to him, and to conseait 
to be saved by him in his own way. And this is 
faith, that faith which will be counted to us for right- 
eousness when we give evidence of its existence in 
the only way in which that evidence can be given. 



180 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTEK II. 

THE TRIAL OF HIS FAITH. 

We have brought down the history of the father 
of the faithful to that memorable declaration of the 
sacred writer, " Abraham believed God, and it was 
counted to him for righteousness." Omitting for the 
present the little episode relative to the birth of Ish- 
mael, we find his history still increasing in interest, 
and propose now to glance at some of the more im- 
portant events in his most eventful life. Among 
these are the renewal of God's promises ; the change 
of his name and that of his wife ; the covenant of 
circumcision ; the prevalence of his prayer, and the 
strange trial by which it pleased God to test the faith 
of his servant. 

With reference to the promises made to Abraham, 
we have, I think, conclusive evidence that they re- 
ferred not merely to temporal, but to spiritual bless- 
ings. We find these promises repeated and reiterated 
on various occasions and in different forms ; but they 
may be summed up in three specific declarations. 
First, that in him should all the families of the earth 
be blessed ; secondly, that to him and his posterity 
should be given the land of Canaan for a possession ; 
and thirdly, that his descendants should be as the 
stars of heaven, or as the sands upon the sea-shore, 
innumerable. The first of these had reference, evi- 
dently to the Messiah, who was to be a lineal de- 



ABRAHAM. 181 

scendant of the patriarch, and through whom life 
and immortality were brought to light, and the offers 
of a free and full salvation were made, without re- 
striction and without limitation, to all the families of 
the earth. Indeed, it would be difficult to give any 
other interpretation of this promise, or to tell how 
else the human race have been blessed in Abraham. 
With reference to the second of these promises, the 
Scriptures of the New Testament are abundantly 
clear that the land of Canaan promised to the seed 
of Abraham was but a type and a figure of a better 
and enduring inheritance. The Apostle Paul assures 
us that Abraham himself thus understood the prom- 
ise. He sojourned in that land, we are told, as in a 
strange country, for he looked for a city which hath 
foundations, whose builder and maker is God. 

Equally explicit is the interpretation of the promise 
with reference to the seed of Abraham. The Jews 
in the time of Christ claimed to be the descendants 
of the patriarch. Literally, indeed, they were. But, 
says Christ, if ye were Abraham's children — that is, if 
ye were those to whom the promises of God pertain — 
ye would do the works of Abraham. "Know ye, 
therefore," says the apostle, that they which are of 
faith, the same are the children of Abraham." And 
again, " if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, 
and heirs according to the promise." From these re- 
marks we see why God so repeatedly confirmed his 
promises to Abraham, and are enabled in some de- 
gree to understand the extent, the fullness, and the 
glory of their import. The coming Saviour of the 
world is shadowed forth as the descendant of Abra- 



182 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEES. 

ham in whom all the families of the earth are to be 
blessed ; an incorruptible inheritance is promised unto 
the seed of the patriarch, and they who follow in his 
footsteps, who believe in Christ, are designated as the 
children of Abraham, who are to enter upon and en- 
joy that inheritance forever. Have these promises 
been fulfilled ? Who shall number the seed of Abra- 
ham ? Perpetual additions are making to that multi- 
tude of whom the whole family in heaven and earth 
are named ; and from almost every corner of the world 
there are ascending the glad tidings which thrill with 
joy our elder brethren there, that another and an- 
other like Abraham has heard and obeyed the call 
of God. 

It was on one of these renewals of the promise that 
the Almighty changed the name of the patriarch from 
Abram to Abraham. This, which was done by sim- 
ply adding a letter to the Hebrew, has given rise to 
many conjectures, on which it is unnecessary to dwell. 
There may possibly be an allusion to this circumstance 
in that remarkable promise found in the Revelation 
of St. John : " To him that overcometh will I give a 
white stone and a new name, which no man know- 
eth saving he that receiveth it." Its full import was 
doubtless understood by Abraham, while to us the 
reason given for it by God himself is all that we know 
with certainty. " Thy name shall be Abraham," says 
he, " for a father of many nations have I made thee ;" 
evidently having in view the extent of the promise 
to which I have referred, and intended as a perpetual 
memorial of that promise and a pledge of its fulfill- 
ment. For the same reason, shortly after the name 



ABRAHAM. 183 

of his wife was also changed by the addition of the 
same letter ; and as all true believers are the children 
of Abraham, so St. Peter says all holy women are the 
daughters of Sarah. 

Keeping in view these observations, we shall be 
enabled to understand the design of the rite of cir- 
cumcision at this time enjoined upon Abraham. " It 
shall be a token," says God, " of the covenant between 
me and you." A token of God's covenant ; it had 
not, therefore, as some argue, reference merely to po- 
litical or national blessings. God's covenant with 
Abraham was, as we have seen, a covenant of grace. 
It was not confined to merely temporal blessings, but 
comprehended the doctrine of justification by faith, 
with all the spiritual advantages connected therewith 
in this life and in that which is to come, in time 
and in eternity. It was, says St. Paul, a sign, a 
seal of the righteousness of faith by Jesus Christ. 
This rite was superseded by baptism, as the Lord's 
supper was made to take the place of the passover ; 
and hence is deduced the argument, incontrovertible 
as the word of God and impregnable as the pillars of 
heaven, that infant children arg entitled to share in 
the blessings^ of that covenant which was made with 
Abraham and his seed, and if so they are proper 
subjects for baptism, the rite initiatory into the Chris- 
tian Church. 

This view of the import of the promises made to 
the father of the faithful is strikingly confirmed by 
the language of Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians. 
He tells us that in these promises the Gospel was 
preached to Abraham. The Gospel ? preached ? Even 



184 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEKS, 

so. A perfect absurdity then, and worse, a false- 
hood, must be that interpretation which confines all 
these glorious promises to this world, to temporal 
blessings. It were as wise and no less absurd to limit 
the blessings of the Gospel itself to this fleeting life, 
and blot from the record its crowning glory of an im- 
mortality beyond the grave. 

Following the scripture narrative, we are next intro- 
duced to a circumstantial account of a very remark- 
able event in Abraham's history. He was seated at 
the door of his tent at midday when three strangers 
made their appearance. With great readiness Abra- 
ham offered unto them the rites of hospitality, invited 
them into his tent, and made preparation for their 
entertainment. It is generally supposed that these 
visitors were angels, having assumed the appearance 
of men ; as it is, doubtless, to this passage that the 
apostle alludes when he says, " Some have entertained 
angels unawares." By them the promises lately given 
were confirmed, and the birth of Isaac within a year 
expressly foretold ; and by them was uttered the sen- 
tence, memorable as expressive of the power of the 
Almighty and of the certainty that all his promises 
will be fulfilled : "Is anything too hard for the 
Lord I " O what a cheering assurance is given in 
that question ! Applicable alike to all times and to 
all circumstances, it stands forth to animate faith 
and *to encourage hope. With God all things are 
possible. But this visit was not designed merely to 
predict the birth of Isaac. It was intended to re- 
veal to Abraham the destruction about to come upon 
Sodom, the city where, as we have seen, his nephew 



ABRAHAM. 185 

Lot dwelt; and as we proceed m the narrative it 
reveals to us the most astonishing condescension of 
Jehovah on the one hand, and on the other a very 
striking illustration of that saying of the apostle, " the 
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth 
much." 

At the close of the entertainment two of these re- 
markable visitors directed their course, apparently, 
toward Sodom ; but the third wonderfully revealed 
his glory to Abraham, by whom he was acknowledged 
as the Lord himself. In the original Hebrew the 
term applied to this personage is that which belongs 
alone to the infinite Eternal, and as God the Father 
was never seen by mortal eye, so it follows that this 
was the angel of the covenant himself; in other 
words, Jesus Christ, the second person in the glorious 
Trinity. Unto Abraham he reveals his intention of 
utterly destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomor- 
rah on account of the great wickedness of the inhab- 
itants. The men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners 
before the Lord exceedingly ; and Abraham inter- 
cedes on their behalf. " Wilt thou," says he, " de- 
stroy the righteous with the wicked?" and as no 
paraphrase that I can give can at all equal the sim- 
plicity, the beauty, and the force of the text itself, I 
will confine myself to the plain record of the trans- 
action as given by Moses. " Peradventure," he con- 
tinues, " there be fifty righteous within the city ; wilt 
thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty 
righteous that are therein ? That be far from thee 
to do after that manner, to slay the righteous with 
the wicked, and that the righteous should be as the 



186 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEES. 

wicked that be far from thee : shall not the Judge of 
all the earth do right ? And the Lord said, If I find 
in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will 
spare all the place for their sakes." Here we see ex- 
emplified in a remarkable manner that saying of the 
Saviour : " the righteous are the salt of the earth." 
Had there been fifty righteous in Sodom, for their 
sakes it had not been destroyed. We see also that 
love to God produces love to man ; Abraham prays 
for the ungodly and intercedes for the transgressors. 
" Peradventure," he continues, " there shall lack five 
of the fifty righteous. Behold now, I have taken 
upon me, who am but dust and ashes, to speak unto 
the Lord. "Wilt thou destroy the city for lack of 
five ? And God answered, If I find there forty and 
five I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him 
yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be found 
forty there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's 
sake." Abraham continues, " O let not the Lord be 
angry, and I will speak : Peradventure there shall 
thirty be found there. And God said, I will not do 
it if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I 
have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord : Per- 
adventure there shall be twenty found there. And 
he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake." 
Abraham makes one more appeal ; and he says, " O 
let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but 
this once : Peradventure ten shall be found there. 
And the Lord answered again, I will not destroy it 
for ten's sake." It is highly probable that Abraham 
supposed that certainly ten righteous persons would 
be found in Sodom, and therefore desisted from his 



ABEAHAM. 187 

supplication under the belief that the impending doom 
would be averted for their sakes. 

"With what humility and yet with what boldness 
does Abraham pray ! How wonderfully is every 
petition answered on the spot ! And God ceases to 
promise to show mercy only when his servant ceases 
to intercede ! "What encouragement is there here to 
perseverance in prayer for our neighbors and for 
those with whom we associate ! What a persuasive 
for fathers and mothers to faint not in their supplica- 
tions for those children who are even yet without God 
and without hope ! 

It seems, however, that the ten righteous were not 
to be found, and consequently the threatened destruc- 
tion came upon the cities of the plain. The Lord 
rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire 
from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those 
cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the 
cities, and that which grew upon the ground. 

The site formerly occupied by these cities is now a 
lake of water known as the Dead or Salt Sea. It 
will form the subject of a future essay. 

About twelve months after this, namely, in the 
year from the creation 2108, when Abraham had 
reached the one hundredth year of his age and Sarah 
her ninety-first, the long-delayed promise is fulfilled, 
and a son is born. They give unto him the name 
Isaac ; and passing over the years of his childhood and 
youth, we arrive at the most severe of Abraham's 
trials, an event so strange, so unexpected, so unlike 
the requirement of a God of mercy, that it would be 
in itself incredible did it not come to us attested by 



188 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

the pen of inspiration. It came to pass that God did 
tempt, or, as it ought to have been rendered, did try- 
Abraham, as if in the comparison all his former trials 
had been as dust in the balance and of no account. 
The immolation of human victims on the altar of an 
imaginary god had been practiced by many idolatrous 
nations. It was a common custom among the wor- 
shipers of Moloch thus to sacrifice the most precious, 
the favorite, the first-born ; in allusion to which cus- 
tom the prophet Micah asks, " Shall I give my first- 
born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for 
the sin of my soul ? " Such offerings God himself 
had taught his people were an utter abomination in 
his sight; yet there comes to Abraham, in the still- 
ness of the night, a strangely mysterious voice : 
" Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou 
lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer 
him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mount- 
ains that I will tell thee of." "What language is this ! 
and what is the spontaneous train of feeling and 
thought that passes through the mind of the father 
as he assures himself that it is indeed the voice of his 
God that he hears ? Take thy son, thine only son, 
thy beloved son. Take him where ? for what ? To 
invest him with the honors of the promise so oft re- 
peated ? to put him in possession of his destined in- 
heritance ? Alas, no ! Take him to his death. Take 
him, thou, his father, and offer him up upon the al- 
tar. Shed thou his blood, and witness his dying 
pang ! "What a host of objections to this requirement 
readily occur to the mind of Abraham had he been 
disposed to make them ! As for instance : " What is 



ABRAHAM. 189 

to become of the promise which declared that in 
Isaac shall thy seed be called % What will the very 
heathen round about say when it becomes known to 
them that I, a father, have shed the blood of mine 
own son by thy command ? How then, with these 
hands reeking in blood, shall I argue with them who 
know thee not, that thou art a God of infinite tender- 
ness and compassion? And O, above all, with what 
face shall I return to the lad's mother, and tell her 
that her son, her only son, hath died by his father's 
hand ! " 

The direction appears to have been given to Abra- 
ham at night, and very severe doubtless was the 
mental conflict during the hours of darkness, yet he 
murmurs not. He does not even acquaint Sarah with 
his purpose, fearing, perhaps, lest a mother's tender- 
ness should interpose and prevent that obedience 
which God required, and embarrass or overpower his 
faith. On the ensuing morning Abraham, it is said, 
rose up early and made the necessary preparation 
for the task imposed upon him, and in company with 
Isaac departed toward the place of which God had 
told him. They journeyed on three days, during 
which ample " leisure," says Bush, " was afforded for 
reflection; the powerful pleadings of nature would 
make themselves heard ; parental affection had time 
to revive ; and the sight, the society, and the conver- 
sation of Isaac could not but combine to shake the 
steadfastness of his faith and urge him to return. 
Had the command been for an instantaneous sacri- 
fice, the struggle, though severe, would have been 
short and comparatively easy." But every hour's 



190 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

delay increased the severity of the trial and height- 
ened the agony of the father's soul. 

At length Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the 
place of which God had told him. "With an unfalter- 
ing faith and a serene countenance he dismisses his 
attendants, lays the wood for the burnt-offering upon 
his son, and bearing himself the knife and the fire, 
the two ascend with slow and measured pace the 
mountain known, as is supposed, in after ages by the 
hallowed name of Calvary. And Isaac spoke unto 
Abraham and said, " My father ! " and he said, 
" Here am I, my son." And he said, " Behold the 
fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt- 
offering ? " I know not that there is in the whole 
compass of the book of God a passage of more sub- 
duing and thrilling pathos than this question of the 
innocent Isaac addressed at this moment to a father 
torn by contending emotions of parental affection and 
of trust and confidence in the promises of God. " My 
father, where is the lamb for the burnt-offering % " 
Still Abraham conceals his purpose, and answers, 
" My son, God will provide himself a lamb ! " He 
spoke prophetically, and had reference, doubtless, to 
that sacrifice known emphatically as the " Lamb of 
God." And now the altar is built, the wood is placed 
in order; all things are ready. By some of the 
Jewish writers a dialogue is here given as passing 
between the father and the son, pathetic, but doubt- 
less imaginary merely. The sacred writer leaves it 
with the reader in a simple narrative of facts. Cer- 
tainly, nothing but the conviction that he was acting 
in obedience to the command of Him whom he was 



ABEAHAM. 191 

bound in all things to obey could have sustained the 
patriarch and nerved him to the dreadful task. Nor 
must we overlook the conduct of Isaac on this occa- 
sion. He was not, as some have supposed, a mere 
child, incapable of resistance; on the contrary, he 
had reached his thirty-third year ; and had he not also 
been fully satisfied that the requirement was from 
God would certainly have refused thus to be offered 
up, thus in the prime of life to die. And now, amid 
mutual tears, the last kiss is given, they bid each 
other farewell to meet again in that better world at 
the resurrection of the just. With unfaltering faith 
the hand of the father is stretched forth ; the trial is 
complete, the victory is gained, and God's voice is 
heard bidding him stay his hand, and accepting the 
will for the deed. " Now I know," says he, " that 
thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy 
son, thine only son, from me." 

The conclusion of Abraham's history, with that of 
Sarah and Isaac, will form the subject of a succeeding 
chapter. Let us for a moment consider the design of 
the Almighty in the remarkable transaction to which 
our attention has been directed. This design, I ap- 
prehend, was twofold : first, an exhibition of faith 
calculated for the instruction and encouragement of 
God's people in all ages ; and secondly, to present a 
lively type of that sacrificial death whereby salvation 
is offered unto a world lying in wickedness. And 
first, the subject before us is eminently calculated to 
induce confidence in God. Abraham believed when 
all around was dark, and this faith produced obe- 
dience prompt, cheerful, unmurmuring. God had, 



192 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

indeed, said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." 
The same God had said, " Take that son, that same 
Isaac, and offer him up upon the altar." The ques- 
tion then naturally arising was, How can the promise 
be fulfilled? That question seems not to have 
troubled the patriarch at all. He was well assured 
that God's promise could not fail ; that his love could 
find a thousand ways to "foolish man unknown." 
" He knew," says the apostle, " that God was able to 
raise his Isaac from the dead." And what a practical 
lesson is here. 

Trials in this life are what the Christian is taught 
to expect, and how, O how, when they come in like 
a flood, shall he be delivered from them ? What can 
sustain the sinking soul when called to give up the 
dearest and nearest friend; to close the eyes of a 
husband or a wife ; to listen to the agonizing shrieks 
of a beloved child as they grow fainter and fainter, 
and the luster of the innocent eye grows dim, and the 
heart so warm and true becomes cold and still? I 
answer, faith in God can do all this. It can wipe 
away the tear of sorrow, and nerve the soul, as it did 
that of the patriarch when he offered up without a 
murmur his well-beloved son to the God who gave 
him. True faith, the faith of Abraham, is nothing 
more and nothing less than an abiding, steadfast 
assurance that God will do all things well. It is 
evinced by obediently walking in the way of God's 
commandments. 

This transaction had another object besides the 
mere trial and exhibition of Abraham's faith. It 
was to show him in a striking light the manner in 



ABKAHAM. 193 

which all the families of the earth should be blessed 
in him. In other words it was a prefiguration of the 
sacrifice of Christ, and Abraham was enabled to see 
and feel by what means this great end should be ac- 
complished. Very remarkable, as* we shall see more 
at length when considering the history of Isaac, is 
the parallel between his offering and that of the 
world's Redeemer upon the same mountain, when 
the fullness of time had come. Abraham, when the 
trial of his faith was complete, and his only son had 
been virtually offered, called the name of that place 
Jehovah-jireh, " As it is said to this day : In the mount 
of the Lord it shall be seen." What shall be seen ? 
Evidently the manner by which God's love to a lost 
world was to be exemplified in the father giving his 
only son to die upon the cross. Thus, from that 
time onward to the advent of the Redeemer, there 
was to those who possessed the writings of Moses a 
lively figure of the offering up of the Son of God for 
the sins of the world. It was but a figure, a type, a 
shadow. Unto us God has made known the glorious 
reality. Unto us there comes a voice calling our 
attention away from Isaac; it comes unto us from 
the excellent glory, proclaiming to all the dwellers 
upon our earth, Behold, behold the Lamb of God 
who taketh away the sins of the world ! 



194 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEKS. 



LOT: 

THE DEAD SEA. 



We turn our attention to the southeastern part of 
the Holy Land. There is the Dead Sea, called by 
the sacred writers the Salt Sea, and the Sea of the 
Plain ; and by Josephus and others, the Asphaltic 
Lake. It is a body of water in length forty miles, 
and in width from eight to ten. Into this lake flow 
the waters of the river Jordan and of several smaller 
streams. 

Several remarkable peculiarities render the Dead 
Sea one of the most interesting portions of our globe. 
The specific gravity of its water is greater than that 
of any other lake or sea.. According to a calculation 
made by Dr. Shaw, although we know not from what 
data it was made, six millions of tons of water from 
the Jordan and tributary streams flow daily into the 
Dead Sea. As is well known, it has no visible out- 
let. Of necessity, therefore, this immense amount of 
water must pass off by evaporation, or by some sub- 
terraneous channel. Probably by both. Broad, 
transparent columns of vapor are seen hanging over 
it, whence are precipitated on the shore large quanti- 
ties of salt, which is collected by the Arabs for the 
use of their flocks and families. This vapor will 



LOT. 195 

scarcely suffice to carry off the water, and hence the 
supposition of an undiscovered subterraneous outlet. 
In the vicinity of the lake are found trees bearing 
fruit known as the apples of Sodom. The trees are 
from ten to fifteen feet high ; the fruit, when ripe, is 
yellow, resembling an orange, beautiful to the eye, 
but when pressed in the hand it explodes, leaving 
nothing but the rind and a few fibers. 

Such is the Dead Sea, as it has been gazed upon 
by generation after generation with mysterious awe. 
Its sluggish waters roll on, attesting the truth of the 
Mosaic record, and carrying back the mind to its ter- 
rible origin, while the language of Jesus Christ directs 
our thoughts to an infinitely moffe terrible visitation ; 
as it was when it rained fire and brimstone from 
heaven and destroyed them all, even thus shall it be 
when the Son of man is revealed ! 

Turn we then our attention to the Bible history of 
this wonderful sea. As we have heretofore stated, 
Lot was the nephew of Abraham. In early life his 
father died, and he became an inmate of the family 
of his uncle. By Abraham he was made acquainted 
with the true God ; and when the father of the faith- 
ful, in obedience to the command of Jehovah, went 
forth from Ur of the Chaldees, Lot went with him. 
They were together in their journey ings in Haran, in 
Mesopotamia, in Egypt, and in the land of Canaan. 
For a while they pitched their tents and dwelt to- 
gether in harmony in the neighborhood of Luz, called 
afterward Bethel. Here their flocks and herds greatly 
increased. They both became rich. Their herds- 
men quarreled, and at the suggestion of Abraham 



196 OLD TESTAMENT CHABACTEKS. 

they separated. Lot cliose a region of country called 
Pentapolis, a Greek word meaning five cities, from 
the fact that within the district were the five princi- 
pal towns, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and 
Belah, or as it was afterward called, Zoar. From 
the account given by Moses, this region of country 
was exceedingly beautiful and fertile. It was well 
watered, says he, everywhere, even as the garden of 
the Lord : like the land of Egypt, as thou earnest 
unto Zoar ; that is, as Paradise, where God placed 
our first parents, beautiful ; and as the land of Egypt 
was rendered fertile by the overflowings of the Nile, 
so the whole plain, even to its southern boundary, 
Zoar, was watered by the Jordan. 

Lot took up his abode in the neighborhood of what 
was probably the largest of these cities, Sodom. He 
had chosen his residence for its beauty and fertility. 
In his eagerness he had overlooked one great fact : 
the moral character of the inhabitants. The men of 
Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord ex- 
ceedingly. This also was the character of the other 
cities of the plain. Better had it been for Lot to have 
remained in the company, or, at any rate, in the 
neighborhood of his God-fearing uncle. Like Lot, 
how many in our own day select a home for its ex- 
ternal advantages merely ! Is it a pleasant place ? 
May, they get gain there? It is enough. Startling 
are the accounts that come back to us even now from 
many who have migrated to the far West of our own 
broad domain. Some, indeed, do not retain their in- 
tegrity even till they reach the shores of the Pacific ; 
and when there, the blighting influence of the reck- 



LOT. 197 

* 
less adventurers — dissolute, knavish, and profane — 

falls like a mildew upon hearts once bathed in a Sav- 
iour's love. For a while, however, Lot maintained 
his upright walk. Even during his residence among 
them, which extended to nearly twenty years, he is 
styled by the Apostle Peter the just Lot, and is 
spoken of as that righteous man who was vexed with 
their filthy conversation and with their unlawful 
deeds. His situation was consequently, even in this 
lovely land, far from pleasant. He was taught, not 
only the insufficiency of worldly wealth, but its utter 
uncertainty. At an unexpected moment he was sud- 
denly plundered of all his possessions, and himself 
taken prisoner by a band of robbers ; and but for the 
courage and promptness of his uncle, as we saw in a 
former essay, he had ended a miserable life in poverty 
and bondage. 

It is wonderful that after this severe affliction Lot 
should again return to Sodom ; that he should still 
choose to dwell in the midst of the heaven-daring 
wickedness of the cities of the plain. We know not 
that he had any other reason for his conduct than 
that which induced him at first to select it for his 
residence. It was an exceedingly pleasant land, and 
remarkably adapted for the purposes of gain. He 
had become attached to the climate and the soil. 
His daughters had married there, the circle of his 
acquaintance was enlarged, and though he was 
grieved from day to day by the conduct of the un- 
godly, yet his heart seems to have yearned over the 
loveliness of the landscape and the beauty of the 
valley of the Jordan. Possibly he hoped to be a ben- 



198 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

efit and a blessing to the citizens of the "plain. It 
could not be otherwise than that his example would be 
like a light shining in a dark place. There was rea- 
son to hope, too, that by that light the citizens of the 
plain would be attracted from their wicked ways. 
But it was not so. They pursued their own course, 
filling up the measure of their iniquities ; and at the 
time to which we have now arrived there were not 
in Sodom (with the exception of Lot and his family) 
ten righteous persons. Two of the angelic messen- 
gers who had first announced to Abraham the inten- 
tion of the Almighty, now visit the city in which Lot 
dwelt. He received them courteously, and enter- 
tained them kindly. A pleasing picture of ancient 
simplicity of manners and of hospitable kindness to 
strangers is here presented. Lot seeing them, rose 
up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face 
to the ground, and he said, " Turn in, I pray you, 
into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and 
wash your feet, and early on the morrow you shall go 
your way." 

He supposed them wayfaring travelers, and knew 
not that they were God's messengers assuming for 
the time the human form. So also were the men of 
Sodom ignorant of the quality of Lot's guests ; and 
their conduct toward them evinces, in hideous colors, 
the deep depravity of the human heart. While gaz- 
ing upon the scene here presented by the inspired 
pencil, we marvel not that the terrible judgments of 
the Almighty are about to fall upon a land polluted 
by such loathsome abominations. To the mild re- 
monstrances of Lot they not only refuse to listen, but 



LOT. 199 

taunting him with the fact that he was but an alien 
and a foreigner in the land, they threaten his life. 
" This fellow/' say they, " came in to sojourn, and he 
will needs be a judge ;" that is, he came among us, a 
stranger, took up his residence in our fertile and 
beautiful valley, where by our sufferance he has been 
permitted to stay, and now he will needs assume to 
himself the character of a judge. He presumes to 
tell us what we ought to do, and to give us unasked ad 
vice. " Now," say they, " will we deal worse with thee 
than with them," and they pressed sore upon him, 
and came near to break the door of his house. But 
for the interposition of Lot's visitors his life had paid 
the penalty of his rashness in remonstrating against 
their wickedness. 

His guests now disclose their real character. " They 
put forth their hands and pulled Lot into the house, 
and shut to the door, and they smote the men that 
were at the door of the house with blindness, both 
small and great." "Whether this was done by depriv- 
ing them literally of sight, or by causing a dense 
darkness through which they could not see, is not 
certain. At any rate they were baffled in their de- 
signs, and the supernatural power of Lot's visitors 
was revealed. Shut in together, a little company, 
Lot himself, his wife, and two daughters, the stran- 
gers make known the purpose. of their visit. It is an 
errand of mercy to Lot, and for his sake, of mercy to 
his family. " The Lord hath sent us," say they, " to 
destroy this place. The cry of the inhabitants is 
waxen great before the face of the Lord. And now 
gather together thy relations, thy sons and thy 



200 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, 
bring them out of this place lest thou be consumed 
in the iniquity of the city." This was a terrible an- 
nouncement. That goodly land, well watered, like 
the garden of the Lord ; that country which twenty 
years ago had attracted Lot by its loveliness, and 
where his children had grown up around him, and 
where he had become rich, is to be utterly destroyed. 
All his possessions, his flocks and herds and dwelling 
place, are to perish in the general overthrow. And 
soon and suddenly shall the destruction come. With 
the rising of to-morrow's sun shall dawn the day of 
doom for the cities of the plain. 

On hearing this announcement, verging as it was 
toward midnight, Lot sallied forth to seek his sons-in- 
law, and to make known to them the doleful tidings. 
They had refused to listen to his entreaties in former 
days ; they had derived no benefit from his example ; 
but now as he comes with a message directly from 
heaven, as he comes to. announce the impending 
doom so soon to burst upon the devoted cities, as he 
comes with the kind offer to take them by the hand 
and lead them to a place of safety, surely they will 
heed his voice and with him escape for their lives. 

"Where they were, or how employed, we know not. 
In the darkness of the night Lot found them. In 
few and hurried words he informs them of what he 
had just learned from the celestial messengers. " Up, 
get you out of this place, for the Lord will destroy 
this city." He added, doubtless, words of persuasion. 
But they listened and laughed. He seemed unto 
them as one that mocked. Like those to whom 



LOT. 201 

Enoch preached, or the men upon whose ears fell 
repeatedly the warning voice of Noah, so fruitless 
and unavailing had been the ministry of Lot to the 
inhabitants of the plain ; and even as in our own d^y 
the preaching of the Gospel is to them that perish 
foolishness, so to his sons-in-law did he seem as one 
that mocked when but a few hours intervened be- 
tween them and terrible destruction. "With a sad 
heart Lot returned to his home. The hours of the 
night wore rapidly away. There was little sleep in 
that dwelling. The angels appear to have spent the 
night there. The morning dawned, " and now," say 
they, " arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters 
which are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity 
of the city." 

It is said Lot lingered. Whether because of sad- 
ness at the thought of the swift destruction coming 
upon his neighbors, or the regret he felt at forsaking 
his possessions, for, as we have seen, he loved the 
land, we know not. He lingered, and they laid hold 
upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and 
upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being 
merciful unto them, and they brought him forth and 
set him without the city. This done, they give" 
to the fugitives the direction, " Escape for thy life ; 
look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the 
plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be con- 
sumed." 

One of the most wonderful features of this affair 
now presents itself. Without the gates of Sodom, 
and on their way to the neighboring mountain, Lot 
intercedes for the little city Belah, on the extreme 



202 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

southern point of the plain. God hears his prayer, 
and directs him there to take refuge. " I have ac- 
cepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not 
overthrow this city for which thou hast spoken." 
Therefore the name of it was thenceforth called Zoar. 
And now the sun rises. It looks down as of old on 
the cities of the plain. The inhabitants are at their 
usual work: planting and building, buying and 
selling, eating and drinking. " Then the Lord 
rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and 
fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew 
those cities and all the plain, and all the inhabitants 
of the cities." There, where those cities stood, now 
flow, and shall flow on till the end of time, the slug- 
gish waters of the Dead Sea. Go measure it, sail 
upon its bosom, fathom its depth, and if, like a mod- 
ern traveler, though a skeptic or an unbeliever, you 
will come back like him with the assured conviction 
that God's word is true. That men have found or 
fancied difficulties in the statement given by Moses is 
not to be wondered at, or that questions may be pro- 
posed concerning it not easily answered. Some two 
thousand years after this event the wisest commenta- 
tor on the Old Testament Scriptures that ever ap- 
peared upon our earth directed His attention and 
ours to this catastrophe. With reverence we may 
ask Him who spoke as never man spoke for informa- 
tion on this subject. " Lord, how were the cities of 
the plain destroyed ? In what way are we to under- 
stand the language of Moses ? Is it an allegory ? Is 
it fiction, or is it fact ? " Listen to Christ's answer, 
an answer strangely overlooked by many who profess 



LOT. 203 

to interpret the Scriptures as philosophers and as men 
of science. 

They tell us of the bituminous nature of the soil of 
the cities of the plain ; they talk wisely, according to 
the wisdom of this world, about electricity, and hunt 
up derivations for the word rendered brimstone in 
the account given by Moses. They are too religious 
to convert the whole narrative into an ingenious de- 
ception. We should say, perhaps, too sagacious ; for 
there, as we have said, roll on from age to age the 
sluggish waters of the Dead Sea. One generation 
after another has gazed upon it awe-stricken, and 
from father to son has descended the tradition. 

Here once were situated Sodom and Gomorrah, 
Admah and Zeboiim. Hence, while admitting the 
fact of their overthrow, they seek to account for it by 
secondary or natural causes, and what is most won- 
derful, at the same time profess great reverence for 
the authority of Christ. He says, and I believe him ; 
he says, and let him be true and every man a liar : 
" The same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained 
fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them 
all. 5 ' 

Jesus Christ also, as you may remember, adverts to 
the terrible doom of Lot's wife. By Moses the ac- 
count is given in few words. She looked back from 
behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Scarce- 
ly any passage of sacred writ has given occasion for 
more fanciful speculations. Into them I enter not. 
The simple fact stands forth upon the sacred page. 
She heeded not the direction given, " Escape for thy 
life." She looked back, probably with a longing de- 



204 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

sire, even then, for the home she was leaving, and she 
perished in the general doom of the ungodly. A 
timely admonition to all who like her have heard 
God's warning voice, and are striving to shun the 
wrath to come, to forget the things that are behind, 
and to press toward the mark for the prize of the 
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. "Remember 
Lotfs wife? 

Just here, had the pen of inspiration been guided 
by the hand of partiality, the history of Lot had 
ended. But it is still continued. He who alone was 
deemed righteous among all the inhabitants of the 
cities of the plain, for whom angelic messengers are 
sent to warn and save, is presented to us as having 
fallen, fallen foully into most abominable sin. Is 
this he who maintained his integrity, his upright walk 
even among the men of Sodom, whose righteous soul 
was vexed from day to day by their ungodly deeds ? 
It is even he ; but ah, how fallen ! How loudly he 
speaks to us from the solitary cave in the mountain, 
" Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he 
fall." It seems to us, too, that had Moses intended 
to have taught the doctrine, once in grace always in 
grace, or, that though God's children may fall foully 
they should not fall finally, it seems to us that he 
would have carried his history a little further ; he 
would not have ended it as he does, with the drunk- 
enness and incest of the man who beyond a perad- 
venture was once high in the favor of God. We 
cannot help thinking that were the doctrine to which 
we have referred true, there would have been some- 
where in the Bible, in the writings of Moses or the 



LOT. 205 

prophets, or the apostles, a ray of light thrown upon 
the darkness that now envelops the lamentable end 
of the once righteous Lot. 

We advert a moment to the great Teacher's practi- 
cal improvement of this terrible catastrophe. Thus 
shall it be, he says, when the Son of man is revealed. 
He refers, primarily, to his coming at the destruction 
of Jerusalem, but connects with it, as on other occa- 
sions, that second advent when he shall come with 
clouds, and every eye shall see him, and all kindreds 
of the earth shall wail because of him. Like the de- 
struction that fell upon the cities of the plain, that 
also will be at an unexpected hour. They were 
thoughtlessly engaged ; they did eat, they drank, they 
bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, when 
sudden destruction overtook them. Even thus shall 
it be when the Son of man is revealed. As it was 
then with the beautiful vale of the Jordan, so at that 
day with the entire earth, it shall be wrapped in one 
universal mass of flame from heaven, and the earth 
and all things that are therein shall be burned up. 
So hath God himself decreed ; so runs the record of 
his will ; while, in his providence, he has left there 
in the Holy Land the waters of the Dead Sea, to 
chant forth, in their low murmurings, an unceasing 
requiem for those who perished in their guilt, while 
the same waters cry aloud to generation after genera 
tion, echoing the words of him, the Saviour once, but 
then the Judge of quick and dead, Thus shall it be 
when the Son of man is revealed. 



206 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 



Hagar, the servant or maid of Sarah, by whom 
she was given to Abraham as a secondary wife, ac- 
cording to the usage of that age, was by birth an 
Egyptian. By some of the ancient rabbis she was 
supposed to be of royal blood, and that supposition 
they incorporate into history, and make her a daugh- 
ter of one of the Pharaohs. Many interpreters of 
the Bible, more especially among the Jews, to the 
confusion of all chronology, confound her with Ke- 
turah, of whom, although in our Bibles it be out of 
its proper place, a distinct account is given by the 
sacred writer. From the manner in which she is in- 
troduced and spoken of, the opinion of Chrysostom is 
most probable. It is, that so far from being of royal 
descent, she was one of those maid-servants given to 
Abraham by Pharaoh on a memorable occasion in his 
history, to which reference is made in a previous 
chapter. She is spoken of as Sarah's maid-servant, 
as a bond-woman ; and though probably not what we 
should deem a slave divested of all personal rights, 
yet a domestic in the tent of the father of the faith- 
ful. Her name, which means literally a stranger, or 
the timid one, was probably given her, as was custom- 
ary, on her removal from her own country, and may 



HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 207 

possibly indicate, as was the case with names given 
in that early age, a peculiar trait in her character. 
They called her Hagar, the timid one. 

In the family of Abraham it could not be other- 
wise than that his servants were instructed in the 
true religion. The idolatrous Egyptian is made 
acquainted with the true God, and her subsequent 
conduct shows that she not only knew, but served 
him. This fact is strikingly evinced when she fled 
from the face of her mistress Sarah, who dealt hardly 
with her, treated her with unkindness and cruelty, 
and for whose conduct on the occasion, and through the 
whole affair, it is hard to find an excuse. The angel 
of the Lord, it is said, accosted the flying maid- 
servant, arrested her in her career, directed her to 
return, and promised her a son, whose name also, it 
is worthy of remark, the angel said should be Ish- 
mael, being the first man born into the world, so far 
as we know, whose name was given him before his 
birth. Thou shalt call his name Ishmael, said the 
angel, that is, literally, " God shall hear," " because," 
he continues, " the Lord hath heard thy affliction." 
An intimation, I think, that in this affair, whatever 
degree of blame rests upon Abraham for his want of 
patience, and upon Sarah for her rashness and petu- 
lance, Hagar was the least blameworthy of the three. 
After hearing the angel's prediction relative to her 
son, it is said she called, or rather called upon or in- 
voked the name of the Lord, recognizing fully his 
superintending care and ever watchful providence in 
the striking language equally applicable to all per- 
sons and all times, " Thou God seest me." The 



208 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

fountain or well of water, by the side of which the 
angel met her, she called Beer-lahai-roi, that is, the 
well of him that liveth and seeth me, or the everlast- 
ing and omnipresent God, indicating thereby at once 
her acquaintance with him, and her trust in his provi- 
dence and care. 

In obedience to the angel's message Hagar re- 
turned, and in the year from the creation 2094 her 
son Ishmael was born, his father Abram being in his 
eighty-sixth year. Thirteen years after this the rite 
of circumcision was instituted ; and now God renews 
his promise to Abraham of another son, and " thou 
shalt call his name," said he, " Isaac, and I will es- 
tablish my covenant with him for an everlasting cov- 
enant, and with his seed after him." " And Abra- 
ham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before 
thee," a prayer indicating submissiveness to the will 
of heaven and paternal anxiety for the welfare of his 
first born. God heard his prayer, and although he 
reaffirmed his declaration relative to Isaac, through 
whom the families of the earth were to be blessed, 
yet gave he many promises relative to Ishmael, to 
which and .their remarkable fulfillment we shall 
briefly advert. 

Pursuing the history, we are told that on a certain 
occasion Sarah saw the son of Hagar " mocking," 
which St. Paul in his epistle to the Galatians, evi- 
dently referring to this event, calls persecuting. 
Isaac was now about three years old, and Ishmael 
had reached his seventeenth year. The mocking or 
persecuting was probably acts of petty annoyance 
and tyranny, in which the elder indulged toward his 






HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 209 

younger brother. " And Sarah said, Cast out this 
bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bond- 
woman shall not be heir with my son, even with 
Isaac." Harsh language and unfeeling, exceedingly 
natural however. Like many other little incidents 
in the Bible, it serves to show by its insertion the 
truthfulness of the sacred writers. 

To Sarah the Jews have ever looked up with feel- 
ings of reverence and respect ; and for the insertion 
of anything placing her character in an unfavorable 
light, and especially for doing so in the sacred chron- 
icles, no other reason can be given than a rigorous 
regard for truth. It had been an easy matter to omit 
the account entirely, and that blind partiality which 
too frequently guides the pen of the uninspired biog- 
rapher would have so varnished the whole story as 
to have presented her character unimpeached and 
spotless. " Cast out this bondwoman and her son," 
said Sarah ; that is, disinherit them, send them off. 
The request was very grievous to Abraham, as the 
sacred writer says, " because of his son ;" his paternal 
heart seems always to have yearned toward Ishmael, 
and but for the interposition of heaven Sarah's un- 
feeling request would doubtless have been disregarded. 
But God said unto Abraham, " Let it not be grievous 
in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy 
bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said, hearken 
unto her voice." This direction from heaven, while 
it does not in the least palliate the conduct of Sarah, 
is a perfect justification of Abraham's conduct. In- 
deed, he could not have done otherwise without open 
disobedience. Accordingly, supplied with food and 



210 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

with, a sufficiency of water to last until their arrival 
at the next well, as was the custom in those days, the 
mother and the son started off upon their melancholy 
exile. After journeying, probably a day or two, they 
seem to have lost their way, and one scarcely finds a 
more affecting picture of distress than is here pre- 
sented. 

Forlorn, desolate, and broken-hearted, banished, 
driven away ; with her son fatherless, herself not a 
widow, in the dreary wilderness of Beersheba, their 
provisions exhausted, their water all gone, Hagar, 
the Egyptian mother — just like a mother — thinking 
more of the sufferings of her boy than of her own, 
abandoned herself to despair. Her beautiful Ish- 
mael — O how beautiful in her eyes — never half so 
lovely as now, faint and dying, she places carefully 
on the green-sward beneath the shade of a friendly 
shrub. With maternal anxiety for a while she 
watches over him; he dozes fitfully, and anon his 
lips, moving in his slumber, give utterance to that 
endearing name, mother ; it is music to her ear. But 
list, he speaks again : " Mother, I faint, I thirst, I 
die ; mother, water." O this is indeed agony ! It 
rends the soul to stand by the bedside of a dear child 
when death is rifling the roses from his cheek and 
planting his own cold lilies there ; when every drug 
has lost it efficacy, and the man of scientific skill 
has softly said, "He cannot live." But there is 
consolation, if not comfort, in the thought that every- 
thing has been done that could be done, that the lit- 
tle sufferer's every want has been anticipated by the 
ready hand, the ever-watchful eye; the artificial 



HAGAK AND ISHMAEL. 211 

breeze has fanned his fevered face ; soft, and grate- 
ful to his aching head, that pillow smoothed by a 
hand still softer and more grateful ; his skillfully 
compounded medicines have been ever ready at the 
appointed hour, and always close at hand the cooling 
draught, the pleasant beverage. But in thy cup of 
bitterness, Hagar, thou desolate one and broken- 
hearted, there is not one of these alleviating drops of 
comfort. In the lone wilderness, under the burning 
sky, without a friend near her, without, so far as we 
know, a solitary friend on earth, she hears her boy 
cry for that most common of all earth's blessings, 
water, and she has none to give him. 

So strong is a mother's love for her first born, had 
it been in her power, she had given him her own life's 
blood. But now his eye is dim, his cry becomes 
faint, it subsides into a moan ; the mother can bear to 
look upon his agony no longer, and she went, to use 
the simple and touching language of Moses, " she 
went and sat her down over against him, a good way 
off, as it were a bow-shot, for she said, Let me not 
see the death," meaning the death-struggle, the dying 
agony of the child. " And she sat over against him, 
and lifted up her voice and wept." But God's all- 
seeing eye was on her, and whispering in the wretched 
mother's ear was heard an angel's voice, " Hagar, fear 
not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where 
he is." The angel then repeated in Hagar's ear 
the promise made before to Abraham, I will make 
him, the faint and dying Ishmael, a great nation. 
And God opened her eyes and she saw a well of 
water, and she went and filled the bottle and gave 



212 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

the lad drink. Thus, by the interposition of heaven, 
was Ishmael restored to life, and journeying onward 
with his mother, they reached the wilderness of Paran 
in Arabia. 

Here the lad grew to maturity and became an archer, 
procuring with his bow a sufficiency of food for him- 
self and his parent. How long they lived thus to- 
gether, and when or where the mother died, we know 
not. She lived to see him arrive at man's estate and 
to witness his marriage with an Egyptian woman, 
one of her own country. He himself survived his 
father Abraham, was present at his funeral, and him- 
self died in the year from the creation 2231, aged 
one hundred and thirty-seven years. 

Let us look now at some of the predictions relative 
to this son of the bondwoman. And first, before his 
birth, and repeatedly afterward in the days of his 
childhood, God had designated him as the father of 
a numerous people, so numerous that, in his own lan- 
guage, it shall not be numbered for multitude. " I 
will make him a great nation, I will multiply him 
exceedingly." And most wonderfully has that pro- 
phecy been fulfilled. In the latter part of the book 
of Genesis we read of the Ishmaelites rejoicing to 
hear the name of the expatriated wanderer, and even 
then so numerous as to carry on an extensive traffic 
with Egypt. They were Ishmaelites who some two 
hundred years after, on a trading excursion, rescued 
the young Joseph from death, bought him of his own 
brothers for twenty pieces of silver, and sold him 
again to Potiphar the Egyptian. They were Ishmael- 
ites from whom Gideon, when he had slain Zeba and 



HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 213 

Zalmunna, received as a prey golden earrings to the 
weight of a thousand and seven hundred shekels of 
gold. 

Another extensive branch of the same family, of 
whom we read frequently in the Bible, were called 
from Hagar, Hagarenes. From Ishmael's son Ne- 
baioth descended the Nabatheans ; and the Itureans, 
from his son Jetur. Down to the present day God's 
word, uttered at the dawn of earth's history, is still 
receiving its fulfillment ; and the Scenites, the Sara- 
cens, the Arabs, amid the darkness of Mohammedan 
superstition, still revert to God Almighty's promise, 
and look back upon the exiled Ishmael as their great 
progenitor. It was foretold, moreover, that he should 
be the father of twelve princes, or rather, as we should 
say, of twelve sons, each of whom was to be, as in 
the case of Israel's descendants, the head of a sepa- 
rate tribe. And it was so. Moses has placed the 
name of each upon imperishable record, and strange- 
ly, if not uncouthly, to many readers of the Bible, 
from want of familiarity, sound the names of Neba- 
ioth, his first born, and Kedar, of whose villages 
Isaiah speaks ; and Adbeel, and Mibsam, and Mishma, 
and Dumah, and Massa, Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, 
JSTaphish, and Kedemah. 

Profane historians advert to the same fact, and 
thus unconsciously attest the fulfillment of God's 
predictions. Strabo speaks of the twelve rulers of 
the Arab tribes, calling them phylarchs ; and Melo, 
quoted by Bishop Newton, speaks of the twelve de- 
scendants of Ishmael who divided the region of Arabia 
between them, " whence," he continues, " even to our 



214 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

days, the Arabians have twelve kings of the same 
name as the first." 

The country properly belonging to this people 
" stretches from Aleppo to the Arabian Sea, and from 
Egypt to the Persian Gulf ; a tract of land not less 
than eighteen hundred miles in length by nine hund- 
red in breadth. It has been divided by geographers 
into three grand divisions, called, from the peculiari- 
ties of soil and climate, the rocky, the desert, and the 
happy. The first consists for the most part of naked 
rocks and flinty plains, with a few fertile spots in the 
peninsula of Mount Sinai ; the second is little else 
than avast wilderness, an almost boundless level of 
burning sand ; while the third, Arabia Felix, is mount- 
ainous, well watered, and abundantly productive. 

Still stranger were the predictions relative to Ish- 
mael the outcast. In the twelfth verse of the six- 
teenth chapter of Genesis it is written, " He will be 
a wild man ; his hand will be against every man and 
every man's hand against him ; and he shall dwell in 
the presence of all his brethren." Confining this 
language to Ishmael himself gives us a very inade- 
quate idea of its meaning, or of the unerring pre- 
science of the God by whom it was uttered. It refers 
beyond a doubt to the entire race of his descendants 
in their collective capacity. It is true, the son of the 
bondwoman was a wild man ; he dwelt in the wilder- 
ness ; he became an archer, and depended upon his 
bow for a livelihood. But what is the voice of all 
history, the concurrent testimony of travelers and 
geographers relative to his descendants down to the 
present hour ? Is it not that they are wild men ? 



HAGAK AjSTD ISHMAEL. 215 

We scarcely talk of the Arab without the prefix 
wandering ; the mind reverts instantaneously to their 
untamed habits, to the burning sands of their deserts, 
to the sons of Ishmael and their living ships, as their 
camels have been happily called ; and language admits 
no more accurate description than was given by the 
Almighty before their first ancestor began to be : 
They are wild men. Their hands are against every 
man and every man's hand is against them. They 
seek no alliance, offensive or defensive, with neigh- 
boring nations ; they spurn the proffered friendship 
of every other race. They live in a state of contin- 
ual war with the rest of the world. " They justify," 
says Sale in his preliminary discourse to the Koran, 
" they justify their robberies and cruelties by alleging 
the hard usage of their father Ishmael, who being 
turned out of doors by Abraham, had the open 
plains and the deserts given him by God for his patri- 
mony, with permission to take whatever he could 
find there." Of course, they being the common ene- 
mies of all men, the hand of every man has been 
against them ; but they dwell as they have continued 
to dwell for now nearly four thousand years, in the 
midst of their brethren. Kingdoms have risen and 
fallen ; empires have waxed and waned ; races have 
been amalgamated ; but Ishmael, with every man's 
hand against him, still retains his integrity as a 
people. 

The proud Sesostris, with his Egyptian hosts, swept 
down upon them like a swarm of locusts ; he gained 
some victories in the western provinces ; but the Ish- 
maelites were unconquered. In succession, the As- 



216 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS 

Syrians and the Persians attempted their subjection, 
with the same result ; under the victorious arms of 
the great Alexander the Persian empire fell, and 
Asia bowed her neck to the tyrant. The neighbor- 
ing princes sent humble embassies to sue for favor, 
but the Arabs disdained to acknowledge him. The 
blood-snuffing eagles of the Romans followed. Lu- 
cullus gained some victories, but Arabia never bore 
the name of a Roman province ; and the celebrated 
Pompey, though he triumphed over three parts of the 
world, found himself overmatched in the wild man of 
the desert. 

At a later day the troops of Augustus penetrated 
far into the country ; but a strange distemper made 
terrible havoc with his army, and but a small rem- 
nant survived to carry home the news of their disas- 
ters. Trajan followed, for a little while successful ; 
but when he besieged the city of the Hagarenes, says 
the historian, his soldiers were repelled by lightnings, 
thunderings, hail, whirlwinds, and other prodigies. 
About eighty years after the Emperor Severus un- 
dertook their subjection, but was baffled and defeated, 
and returned home vexed and dispirited. And so 
onward in their history to the present day. At one 
time they were masters of the most considerable parts 
of the earth ; and though their empire be now, as of 
old, reduced to the limits of their native country, they 
still dwell in the midst of their brethren, and the 
Turks, though the masters of the adjacent countries, 
are content to pay them tribute. 

They dwell in the midst of their brethren ! How 
different in this respect the children of Ishmael from 



HAGAR AOT) ISHMAEL. 217 

the descendants of his brother, the favorite Isaac. A 
nation scattered and peeled, wanderers and outcasts, 
in Egypt, in Asia Minor, in almost every part of 
Europe, in America, nay, almost everywhere, retain- 
ing their own peculiarities, glorying in the same an- 
cestor the father of the faithful, but despised, reck- 
oned as intruders, their very name a proverb of re- 
proach — Jews, where are they not ? But the Ishmael- 
ite dwells in his own country ; he cultivates the fer- 
tile plains of Yemen, he glories in his sterile rocks, and 
thinks of his banished ancestor when he reaches in 
his wanderings some lovely oasis in his own limitless 
desert. 



218 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTERS. 



ISAAC 



We have traced the history of Abraham and his 
son Isaac down to that severe trial of the father's 
faith and the son's obedience, his virtual offering up 
in the land of Moriah. A brief detail of the more 
prominent events in the life of Isaac, and the very 
remarkable coincidence which has caused him to be 
regarded, in all ages, as a type of Christ, will form 
the subject of the present essay. 

Very often it is found in man's history that just 
when he is most wretched, when the midnight of his 
sorrow has reached its darkest hour, the light of glad- 
ness dawns upon his soul and sorrow and sadness flee 
away. So was it in the case of the father and the 
son when the voice of God arrested the sacrifice, and 
Abraham unbound the willing victim. With light 
hearts they descended the mountain, and returned to 
their dwelling-place praising God. 

There is a tradition among the Jews that the report 
was brought to Sarah that Abraham had in reality 
slain his son, and that the news thus brought was the 
occasion of Sarah's death. The story is embellished 
with many fanciful details, but is evidently untrue, 
inasmuch as her death did not occur until some four 
years after this event, namely, in the year from the 



ISAAC. 219 

creation 2145, when she had attained the one hundred 
and twenty-seventh year of her age. Her character 
is held np in the New Testament for imitation ; and 
although she gave evidence, on one occasion, that her 
confidence in the Divine promises was not so strong 
as that of Abraham, yet she appears everywhere as 
the faithful wife, the affectionate mother, the devoted 
servant of the Lord. She died in Hebron, a city 
afterward much celebrated in Scripture history, and 
situated about twenty-seven miles south of Jerusalem. 
She had been Abraham's partner sixty-two years ; the 
sharer of his joys and his griefs, his consolations and 
his trials, and now, it is not wonderful that " he 
mourned and wept " for her. There was no stoicism 
in the religion of the patriarch: he could endure 
affliction ; he could bear up under trials the most se- 
vere ; but he knew nothing of that philosophy which 
affects to deny or conceal the natural emotions of the 
heart. He sorrowed, but not as those who have no 
hope ; he looked forward to a reunion beyond the 
grave, and as he gazed upon those cold remains, once 
beaming with loveliness, his tears were the natural 
tribute of a warm heart at the remembrance of her 
worth. 

In the transaction recorded in the ensuing chapter, 
we have an interesting specimen of courtesy to a 
stranger on the one part, and on the other of honest 
and manly independence. The sons of Heth, who 
was the grandson of Ham, in whose country Abra- 
ham was now sojourning, offer unto him the choice 
of all their sepulchers that he may bury his dead. 
They do this because he is a stranger in that country 



220 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

which God had promised him, and because until now 
he had no foot of land to call his own ; a stranger 
and a pilgrim. " In the choice of our sepulchers," 
say they, " bury thy dead ; none of us shall withhold 
from thee his sepulcher." One of them, known as 
Ephron, the Hittite, being the owner of a suitable 
burial-place, offers to give unto the afflicted stranger 
his field and the cave that was therein. " I give it 
thee," says he, " in the presence of the sons of my 
people I give it thee : bury thy dead." But Abraham 
refused to receive it as a gift, and having ascertained 
its value, weighs out the four hundred shekels of sil- 
ver, and thus by purchase comes into possession of a 
small part, and that part a burial-place, in a land the 
whole of which God had promised unto him and his 
descendants for a possession. He bought this burial- 
place evidently with the design that by means of it 
his posterity should be reminded of God's gracious 
promise. " It was to be," says Bush, " four hundred 
years before his seed were to possess the land of Ca- 
naan. In that length of time it was probable that 
without some memento the promise itself would be 
forgotten ; and more especially during their Egyptian 
bondage, of which God had forewarned Abraham. 
But their having a burial-place in Canaan, where 
their bones were to be laid with those of Abraham 
and Sarah, was the most likely means of keeping 
alive in every succeeding generation the hope of ulti- 
mately possessing the whole land." 

Accordingly we find it did produce this very effect, 
for as Abraham and Sarah were buried in that cave, 
so were Isaac and Bebekah, and Jacob and Leah, not- 



ISAAC. 221 

withstanding Jacob died in Egypt. And even Jo- 
seph on his death-bed, some two hundred and twenty- 
years after, took an oath from the children of Israel 
that when they came into possession of the promised 
land they would carry up his bones from Egypt and 
bury them in the sepulcher of his fathers. 

The purchase of this field for money is the first in- 
stance on record of the precious metals being used 
for purposes of exchange. " Till then, and long 
after," says Dr. Hunter, u both among the posterity 
of Abraham and other nations, wealth was estimated 
by the number and quality of cattle ; and cattle were 
the principal instruments of commerce. Thus Ho- 
mer speaks of a coat of mail valued at one hundred 
oxen ; a caldron worth twenty sheep, and a cup or 
goblet estimated at twelve lambs. A criminal, ac- 
cording to the magnitude of his guilt, was condemned 
to pay a fine of four, twelve, or a hundred oxen. A 
wealthy person is called a man of many lambs ; and 
Hesiod speaks of two brothers fighting for the sheep 
of their father, that is, contending who should be his 
heir. From the statement before us it seems that sil- 
ver was even then employed as a more commodious 
medium of traffic, and from that period to the pres- 
ent the precious metals have been used for the pur- 
pose, to a greater or less extent, by all civilized 
nations. 

About three years after the death of Sarah, when 
Isaac had attained his fortieth year, he was married 
to his cousin Eebekah, the daughter of Bethuel. It 
is somewhat remarkable that one of the longest chap- 
ters in the Bible is entirely occupied with the circum- 



222 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

stances connected with this marriage, while so many 
events that appear to us of far greater importance 
are passed over in a verse or single sentence. It is 
another evidence of the assertion : God's ways are 
not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. 

The chapter referred to gives a beautiful descrip- 
tion of the simplicity of manners prevalent in that 
age, and may have been written for the purpose of 
showing that God's providence extends to matters of 
apparently trivial importance, as well as to those 
which in human estimation are of great magnitude. 
Following the narrative of Moses, although some 
think the event is not related in its proper place, we 
find Abraham again entering into the bonds of matri- 
mony and blessed with a number of children. The 
latter years of his life appear to have been spent in 
tranquillity and peace. After the trials and afflictions 
through which he has passed, it is pleasant to look 
upon him as the evening shades appear ; to view him 
approach the boundary of his earthly career, like the 
sun in his appointed course hiding himself behind 
the western hills, and like that sun destined to rise 
again. " An old man," says Moses, " full of years, 
being one hundred and seventy-five, he was gathered 
to his people ; and his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried 
him in the cave of Ma^hphelah," by the side of his 
beloved Sarah." Such is the faint outline of the 
eventful life, the exalted character, and the peaceful 
end of him who stands forth upon the sacred page as 
a model of faith and obedience, of generosity, integ- 
rity, and honor. The father of the faithful and the 
friend of God, " he was gathered," says Moses, " to 



isaac. 223 

his people ;" meaning by that expression, not that 
his body mingled its dust with that of his ancestors, 
for this, as we have seen, was not the fact ; but that 
his soul, purified from earthly corruption, winged its 
flight to the company of those who had preceded him ; 
into the society of his people, of the just made per- 
fect, of Enoch, and Noah, and righteous Abel. To 
each of his several children he had bequeathed a sepa- 
rate portion ; but under the direction of God the chief 
of all his substance was given to Isaac, who was des- 
ignated as the heir of his father's possessions and of 
God's promises. 

The life of Isaac, for the most part, passed away 
with few incidents of moment. By far the most im- 
portant and interesting event in his career was that 
to which we have already adverted, whereby he be- 
came to all ages a prefiguration of the great atoning 
sacrifice, a type most memorable and illustrious of 
the world's Redeemer. To this we shall again recur 
after noticing a few of the peculiar traits in his char- 
acter as pointed out by the sacred writer. He seems 
to have been fond of meditation and prayer. He 
went out to meditate in the field at the eventide. 
That is, when the shades of night drew on, and the 
toils of the day were over, he went forth that he 
might be alone with his God ; to meditate upon his 
goodness, and to hold communion with him ; and 
this seems to have been the prevailing feature of his 
character. His affection for his parents seems to 
have been great. He was always obedient, dutiful, 
and kind. His grief at the death of his mother was 
severe, for it was three years after that event when it 



22i OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

is said Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. 
At the burial of his father he appears to have forgot- 
ten the insults and injuries he had received from Ish- 
mael, and the two brothers, so unlike in disposition 
and temper, mingled their tears together at his grave. 

He had been married twenty years before his sons, 
Esau and Jacob, were born, and their birth is men- 
tioned as a signal answer to his repeated prayers. 
" And now we are introduced to the prolific source of 
most of the troubles which afterward arose to dis- 
quiet the family of the patriarch. Isaac loved Esau, 
but Rebekah loved Jacob. Whatever may be said as 
to the ground of this parental partiality, it is clear 
that nothing could be more unhappy than the conse- 
quences to which it led. The distress which embit- 
tered the remainder of Isaac's life may be traced 
directly to this source, teaching us by an impressive 
example the lesson which all parents may expect to 
learn from the indulgence of a similar weakness. A 
distinction among children, while it sows the seed of 
discord between the heads of the family, produces 
effects upon its objects still more disastrous. It kin- 
dles the flames of jealousy and resentment between 
brothers and sisters, and renders the heart which 
should be the seat of every gentle and kindly emo- 
tion the habitation of anger, malice, and revenge. 
It will be entirely owing to the interposition of a 
kind and merciful Providence if those parents who 
thus sow the wind do not reap the whirlwind." 

It is a somewhat remarkable coincidence that, as 
we saw in the history of Abraham, there was a fam- 
ine in the land of Canaan, so also there was one in 



isaac. 225 

the days of Isaac, and that, as in the case of his fa- 
ther, he too was obliged to leave the country for a 
season. These repeated famines in a land which God 
had promised them could not fail to draw the atten- 
tion of the patriarchs from the mere earthly posses- 
sion to that better inheritance of which Canaan was 
a type. During the prevalence of this famine, while 
Isaac dwelt in Gerar, a city of stony Arabia, he fell 
into the same fault of which his father had been 
guilty in the same place. He suppressed the truth 
with reference to Rebekah, and most keenly was he 
rebuked for it by the king of that country, who was 
in all probability himself an idolater. So have I 
heard the man of the world lecturing the professing 
Christian on his deviations from the straight path of 
integrity, and asking a question that ought to suffuse 
the face with crimson, and make the ears tingle. 
"What is that religion worth that does not make its 
possessor honest, upright, a man of truth? Why, 
think you, were not these things suppressed by the 
sacred historian ? Why did he leave these blots upon 
characters otherwise so faultless, so pure? For our 
admonition, doubtless, they were written ; and they 
stand upon the sacred page like beacons on some sea- 
girt coast, to warn the mariner from the rocks that 
threaten shipwreck and destruction. 

During Isaac's sojourn in Gerar his wealth in- 
creased so rapidly as to excite the envy of the Philis- 
tines, and in consequence of this feeling we are told 
that all the wells which his father's servants had 
digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philis- 
tines had stopped them and filled them with earth ; a 

15 



226 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 

wanton piece of injury, and one well calculated to 
destroy his flocks and herds, which of course could 
not exist without water. Isaac bore these injuries 
with great patience, and instead of seeking to be re- 
venged for them, or in any way to retaliate, he re- 
moved from one place to another, until his enemies 
were wearied with molesting him, and permitted him 
to dwell in peace. 

The latter part of the patriarch's life was spent in 
darkness ; whether from disease, or accident, or nat- 
ural weakness in the organs of sight he became totally 
blind, and continued in this state forty-five years, 
during all of which time he appears to have possessed 
his soul in patience. Shut out from the light of 
heaven, imposed upon by his wife, and deceived by 
his son, as we shall see more at large when consider- 
ing the history of Jacob, he had much to try his 
patience, and to test the strength of his faith and the 
firmness of his reliance upon the promises of God. 

The time at length arrived when Isaac must go the 
way of all the earth ; and in the one hundred and 
eightieth year of his age, like as a shock of corn fully 
ripe, he was gathered into the garner of his God. 
His sons, Esau and Jacob, appear to have buried 
their mutual hostility in their father's grave, and to- 
gether pay the last sad tribute of respect to his mould- 
ering dust. 

His character, although not faultless, may be held 
up for imitation to the old, the middle aged, and the 
young. "When bowed down by the decrepitude and 
infirmities of many years he is a model of evenness 
of temper, resignation, and composure in the prospect 



ISAAC. 227 

of dissolution. His last recorded act is a blessing, 
and his last words, " God Almighty bless thee, and 
give thee the blessing of Abraham." Those in mid- 
dle life may learn from him a lesson of domestic pie- 
ty and devotion, conjugal fidelity, prudent foresight, 
and persevering industry. Let the selfish and con- 
tentious stand reproved by the example of his moder- 
ation, by his patience under unkindness and injustice, 
and by his meek surrender of an undoubted right for 
the sake of peace. To the young he is a beautiful 
example of filial obedience and affection ; and in his 
younger days he was selected by Infinite Wisdom to 
typify and shadow forth the Lord Jesus, the atoning 
lamb of God. Let us notice some of the more im- 
portant and obvious particulars in which Isaac typified 
Christ. In the first place Isaac was a promised son. 
Numerous and oft-repeated were the promises of God 
relative to his birth. Long delayed was the fulfill- 
ment of that promise. So with the world's Redeem- 
er. In the thick darkness that settled upon our earth 
after the first transgression, there was given to our 
first parents a promise couched in language far from 
explicit, but, like the glimmering of a star, sufficient 
to excite attention and to inspire hope. In after ages 
this promise was again repeated, and at every renew- 
al with still increasing clearness ; but long was its 
fulfillment delayed, and many exclaimed : " Where 
is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers 
fell asleep all things remain as they were from the 
beginning." 

But again, Isaac was a son of faith and expectation. 
His father, it is said, staggered not through unbelief, 



228 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. So the 
faithful, in the long night which preceded the dawn- 
ing of the Day-star from on high, relied upon the 
promise and looked for the consolation of Israel. 
" These all died in faith," says the apostle, " not hav- 
ing received the promises, but having seen them afar 
off, and were persuaded of them and embraced them." 
At length the promise to Abraham was fulfilled ; a 
son is born; his name is Isaac, which means joy, 
gladness ; and when the fullness of the time was come 
a herald from the upper world is heard saying, " Be- 
hold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall 
be to all people, for unto you is born this day, in the 
city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." 
Isaac was the only son of his parents, affectionately 
beloved by them, their joy and delight; so Christ 
was the only-begotten and beloved son of his father, 
was daily his delight and rejoicing always before 
him. Abraham, at the command of God, refuses not 
to doom this, his only, his well-beloved son, to die ; 
and God commendeth his love to us, that he withheld 
not his Son, but freely gave him up to die for us. 
Isaac might have resisted and refused, but in meek- 
ness he submitted, knowing such to be the good pleas- 
ure of his God ; and Jesus Christ exclaimed, " Lo, I 
come to do thy will ; no man taketh my life from 
me. I have power to lay down my life, and I have 
power to take it again." The age of Isaac, as ob- 
served in a former chapter, is supposed to have been 
the same as that of Christ when he was offered up ; 
and in either case we see the parallel still further ex- 
tended, that as Isaac had committed no crime for 



isaac. 229 

which he was to die, so in Christ there was found no 
sin, neither was guile found in his lips ; he was offered 
as a lamb without spot. As the father and the son 
proceeded on their way to the place of which God 
had told them, Isaac himself bore the wood by which 
he was to be sacrificed; and as Jesus journeyed 
toward Calvary he bore the cross and endured the 
shame. But here the parallel ends. Isaac, although 
willing to die and virtually offered up, was rescued 
by the voice of God calling Abraham to stay his 
hand ; but Christ drained the cup of sorrow to the 
dregs, and poured out his life upon the cross. 

See now to what pains God has been to make man 
acquainted with the plan of the world's redemption. 
To the generations which preceded Christ's advent, 
he gave types and shadows and figures, that by them 
they might be led to Him of whom Moses and the 
prophets wrote. Myriads were thus led to Christ, and 
became inheritors of the promises ; for it was true 
then, as it is now, and will ever continue to be, there 
is no other name given under heaven whereby man 
can be saved. Doubtless in those ages many rejected 
Christ and refused to be saved through that sacrifice 
of which the offering up of Isaac was a type and a 
shadow. They perished in consequence of such re- 
jection. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose 
ye, shall he be thought worthy who, at this day, re- 
jects the Saviour, when the types of a dark age are 
done away, and the shadows have been dispelled by 
the meridian brightness of the Sun of Kighteousness. 
O deep and dark will be that damnation which re- 
sults from a. willful rejection of so much light and so 
much love. 



230 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEKS. 



JACOB. 

• 

CHAPTEE I. 

HIS EARLIER LIFE. 

" How dreadful is this place ! This is none other 
than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." 
Such was Jacob's exclamation at Bethel, formerly 
called Luz, the site of a city about eight miles north 
of Jerusalem. The exclamation was called forth by 
a remarkable dream, a wonderful vision with which 
God favored him. And here it is proper to meet a 
question which has often occurred to readers of the 
sacred volume. That question is, Why was it that, 
in the olden time, the Supreme Being took so many 
strange methods of making known his will to the 
children of men ? We hear nothing now of angelic 
visits, of revelations in visions of the night, of God's 
audible voice from heaven, as it fell repeatedly upon 
the ears of patriarchs and prophets ; and why not ? 
The answer is easy. Why do we not see the stars 
when the sun shines at noonday ? In those early 
ages the Sun of Righteousness had not risen on our 
world. There was no revealed record of God's will ; 
no Bible. But now we have the full-orbed splendors 
of his own revealed truth ; and, for those who seek 



JACOB. 231 

to know and do their duty, there is no need of special 
visitations from on high. In the world's twilight it 
was vastly different, and God spoke unto the children 
of men, as in the case before us, in dreams and visions 
of the night. 

Jacob, it is said, saw a ladder set upon the earth, 
and the top of it reached to heaven, " and behold the 
angels of God ascending and descending upon it ; 
and the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord 
God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac." 

The event is memorable not only on account of 
this remarkable vision, but also, and especially, for 
the vow there made by Jacob, that henceforth the 
Lord should be his God. From that hour a remark- 
able change was wrought in his character. His 
whole course of conduct is altered. He becomes a 
new creature, and thenceforth his name is associated 
with those of his father and his grandfather ; and Je- 
hovah styles himself the God of Jacob, as well as 
the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. Let us 
briefly trace his history down to the incident here 
referred to. 

He was born, according to the commonly received 
chronology, in the year from the creation 2168. He 
was, as stated in a preceding essay, the favorite of his 
mother, while his father was more partial to his brother 
Esau. 

The difference in the character of these two broth- 
ers is discernible from their infancy. Esau was a 
hunter, bold, rash, and impetuous. Jacob was a 
shepherd, cool, crafty, and industrious. Of the two, 
until grace changed the heart of the younger, I rather 



232 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEKS. 

prefer the character of Esau. There is an air of 
rough frankness about him that is certainly prefera- 
ble to the sly cunning of Jacob. 

An incident that took place when they had grown 
up to manhood, affords an illustration of their pecul- 
iar dispositions. Esau had been out, probably on a 
hunting excursion, and returned faint and weary. 
His brother Jacob had been preparing savory food, 
pottage as it is called, and Esau seeing it, requested 
as a favor a small portion to appease his hunger. I 
will give it thee, says Jacob, on one condition. Sell 
me this day thy birthright ; that is, the right which 
belongs to thee as the first-born. This right included 
several important privileges, among which may be 
enumerated a double portion of the paternal proper- 
ty, and the priestly office, which, previous to the set- 
ting apart of one tribe for that purpose, devolved 
upon the first-born, or eldest son. It was an» ungen- 
erous request, an unbrotherly proposal, and is not of 
course recorded for imitation. " And Esau said, Be- 
hold, I am at the point to die ; and what profit shall 
this birthright be to me % " That is, not that he 
feared immediate death from starvation, for there 
was doubtless other food in the tent of his father ; 
but as if he had said, I am daily exposed to die, lia- 
ble at any moment to be cut off, in consequence of 
my precarious mode of life, and at best have but a 
short time to live. Give me therefore the pottage 
and take the birthright. And Jacob, with charac- 
teristic caution, required of his brother an oath. 
" Swear to me," said he, " this day ;" and he swore 
unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. 



jacob. 233 

To this act the apostle Paul evidently alludes when 
he applies to Esau the epithet profane. "Lest there 
be among you," says he, " any profane person, like 
Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright, 
for ye know how that afterward, when he would have 
inherited the blessing, he was rejected : for he found 
no place of repentance though he sought it carefully 
with tears." " A profane person," says Bush, " is 
one who treats sacred things with irreligious con- 
tempt." Esau is so termed because he practically 
despised and undervalued those inestimable spiritual 
privileges and blessings secured in the birthright. 
Had he disregarded only temporal benefits, he had 
been guilty indeed of egregious folly, but it would 
not have amounted to prof aneness. But now, by one 
rash act, prompted by the urgency of a fleshly appe- 
tite, he voluntarily renounced and forfeited for him-' 
self and his posterity, all the precious prerogatives 
which flowed down in the line of the covenant, and 
which ought to have been dearer to him than life it- 
self. It was, as I have said, unkind in Jacob to take 
this advantage of his brother ; he had seen, probably, 
the little value that Esau placed upon the spiritual 
blessings pertaining to the birthright, and was there- 
fore induced to offer in exchange for it so trifling a 
thing as a mess of pottage. It was like that spirit 
which too generally prevails among men at the pres- 
ent day, a desire to get good bargains ; to sell dear, 
to buy cheap ; and to take advantage of the wants 
and necessities of our fellow-men. The conduct of 
Jacob forms, however, no excuse for that of Esau, 
who appears not to have regretted his folly. After 



234: OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

eating and drinking lie went his way, as if perfectly- 
satisfied with his bargain. 

Many are there who are ready to condemn the 
foolish conduct of Esau, who nevertheless imitate his 
example, and act even worse than he did. The grati- 
fication of their desires must be had, at any price. 
Spiritual privileges are parted with for even less than 
a mess of pottage. Esau sold his privileges for a 
momentary gratification of his appetite ; these for the 
same thing barter their hopes of heaven : he parted 
with his birthright for a trifle ; for just such trifles 
they sell their souls. Charity, indeed, may find some 
palliation for Esau's conduct ; he may have been to 
some extent ignorant of the value of his birthright ; 
but for us there is no such excuse. We know full 
well the destiny of the soul, the cost of its redemp- 
tion, the glory of its inheritance ; and there is an 
hour coming when Esau's sale of his birthright will 
appear a matter of very little moment, compared 
with daily barterings of which our world is full, and 
which prompted Christ to ask the fearful questions : 
" What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man 
give in exchange for his soul ? " 

The next prominent event in the life of Esau is his 
marriage with two Canaanitish women, by which the 
peace of the family was disturbed ; for, says Moses, 
they were a grief of mind unto Isaac and Rebecca ; 
and the Jerusalem Targum attributes to them, with 
great probability, the positive practice of idolatry. 
Esau, nevertheless, seems still to have been the fa- 
ther's favorite, for Isaac being now an old man, and 



JACOB. 235 

his eyesight having failed him, so that he could not 
see, he called Esau, and said : " Behold, now, I am 
old, I know not the day of my death ;" an expres- 
sion indicating that he expected soon to die, although 
his life was prolonged upward of forty years after 
this event. I am probably near my end, and shall 
soon be taken away. " Now, therefore, take, I pray 
thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go 
out to the field, and take me some venison ; and 
make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it to 
me that I may eat, that my soul may bless thee be- 
fore I die." His design evidently was to confer upon 
his favorite the right of primogeniture, the blessing 
which he himself had voluntarily relinquished to his 
younger brother. Isaac's reason for sending him in 
the first place to take venison and prepare him savory 
food is not obvious, but the suggestion of a learned 
commentator (A. Clarke) deserves attention. He says 
that, as eating and drinking were used among the 
Asiatics on almost all religious occasions, it is reason- 
able to suppose that something of this kind was essen- 
tially necessary on this occasion, and that Isaac could 
not convey the right till he had eaten of the meat 
provided for the purpose by him who was to receive 
the blessing. 

Had Isaac forgotten that God had said, the elder 
shall serve the younger ? or did he hope to turn aside 
the counsel of the Almighty ? He surely must have 
remembered that by the decree of heaven he himself 
had been preferred to his elder brother, Ishmael ; and 
we look in vain for any reasonable excuse for his at- 
tempt to place his favorite Esau before him whom 



236 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS 

God had specially designated as heir to the promises. 
How different his conduct from that of his father 
Abraham. "When he was told that Isaac should in- 
herit the promises he bowed submissively, and sim- 
ply said, " O, that Ishmael might live before thee ! " 
But Isaac endeavors to nullify the decree of God, and 
the conversation between the old man and his son 
was overheard by Rebecca, at whose instance Jacob, 
rightly named the supplanter, was induced, by de- 
ception, and fraud, and falsehood, to secure to him- 
self the blessing. It was not without some struggles 
with his conscience that Jacob was induced to comply 
with the proposal of his mother. " Behold," says he, 
" I shall seem to my father as a deceiver ; and I shall 
bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing." Well 
might he fear a curse. It was written afterward in 
the law, " Cursed be he that maketh the Mind to 
wander out of the way ;" and here we have the moth- 
er and the son conspiring not merely to make the 
blind wander out of the way, but to impose upon a 
kind father and an affectionate husband, apparently 
upon his dying bed ; to take an ungenerous advant- 
age of his blindness ; and all this is done with cool- 
ness and deliberation, with falsehood and well-dis- 
sembled cunning. The sacred writer relates the 
circumstances without any effort at concealment, or 
any attempt to palliate the conduct of the mother or 
the son ; and this fact is evidence of his strict adher- 
ence to truth. Had his intention been to write a fic- 
tion, and to impose it on the world for truth, he would 
either have drawn a vail entirely over these things, 
or offered excuses for this conduct in the man who, 



jacob. 237 

in after ages, was regarded as one of the fathers of 
his own people, and from whom the Israelites derived 
their name. 

It is remarkable too that Jacob, while in the first 
instance opposing the counsel of his mother, does not 
appear to think of the si?i he was about to commit. 
His language is not like that of his son Joseph in 
the hour of temptation : " How shall I do this great 
wickedness, and sin against God ?" but he fears lest 
his poor blind father should detect the fraud, and 
convert the expected blessing into a father's curse. 
" And his mother said unto him : Upon me be thy 
curse, my son." I will run the risk, I will take the 
responsibility. Thus fortified and encouraged, Jacob 
complies with her direction ; brings from the flock 
two young kids, which his mother prepares; and 
being dressed in a suit of Esau's raiment, makes his 
appearance before the bedside of his father. "Who 
art thou ? " is the inquiry of the old man ; and Jacob 
said, " I am Esau, thy first-born ; I have done as thou 
desired ; arise, I pray thee, sit, and eat of my venison, 
that thy soul may bless me." 

Mark, now, how the first step in sin prepares the 
way for another ; and how almost impossible it is for 
him who indulges in one deviation from the path of 
truth to say, I will stop here, and go no further. 
And Isaac said : How hast thou found it so quickly, 
my son ? That was a question which Jacob had not 
expected ; a question for which his mother had not 
prepared him. Had not his father been blind, he 
would have seen his son's cheek suffused with crim- 
son ; and but for the infirmity of his age, h„e had de- 



238 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTEES. 

tected the deceit in the faltering of those lips as they 
gave utterance to the monstrous falsehood : " Because 
the Lord thy God brought it to me. And Isaac said, 
Art thou my very son Esau ?" and Jacob, now grown 
bold, promptly answered, "I am" And he drew 
near, and sealed his falsehood with a kiss. 

How vividly, in a few words, does the sacred pen- 
man bring this disgraceful scene before the eye. 
There, upon his couch, old, blind, diseased, apparently 
dying, is he whom we saw a while since in the vigor 
of youth, calmly awaiting death in obedience to the 
command of God. That is his son, who, after his 
dissimulation and falsehood, stoops down and kisses 
his furrowed cheek. The deception appears to have 
been perfectly successful, and can be accounted for 
only by referring to the infirmity and blindness of 
the father, diseased, and hovering on the verge of the 
grave. 

Attempts have been made, I know, to excuse this 
conduct of Jacob, on the ground that he had pur- 
chased the birthright, and that it was God's intention 
that he should have it. Admitting both these facts, 
they form no possible excuse for his unbrotherly con- 
duct in making such a purchase, or his wicked dis- 
simulation in imposing upon his father by fraud and 
falsehood. "We have no apology for the profanity of 
Esau in despising his birthright or in parting with it 
for a momentary gratification ; none for Rebecca in 
urging her son to deceive his father ; none for Jacob 
in being led into such guilt even by a mother's per- 
suasion. The infinitely wise God could have brought 
about the accomplishment of his designs without 



jacob. 239 

their aid ; and in this matter, even in the most favor- 
able light in which their conduct can be viewed, they 
incur that just condemnation which the apostle pro- 
nounces against those who do evil that good may 
come ; a spirit very prevalent in the world, but ut- 
terly repugnant to the teaching of the Bible and the 
word of God. Of those who merely charged upon 
the apostles the doctrine that the end sanctifies the 
means, Paul declares that their damnation is just. 

Jacob having succeeded in his design, had scarcely 
left his father's presence, and was probably rejoicing 
with his mother in his success, when Esau came in 
from his hunting. And he also made savory meat, 
and brought it unto his father, and said, " Let my 
father arise and eat of his son's venison, that thy soul 
may bless me." And Isaac, when made acquainted 
with the fraud which had been practiced upon him, 
"trembled exceedingly." Overcome with astonish- 
ment at the baseness of his younger son, and at the 
same time unable to revoke the blessing which he 
had pronounced upon him, he saw that his intention 
had been overruled by that Q-od who had foretold, 
previous to the birth of the children, that the elder 
should serve the younger. 

The conduct of Esau on this occasion is very af- 
fecting, and we forget for the moment his folly in 
parting with so little concern with his birthright, 
and are apt to overlook all his faults as we see the 
bold hunter shedding tears, for he lifted up his voice 
and wept ; it is affecting, too, to hear him cry in the 
bitterness of his soul, " Hast thou but one blessing, 
my father ? bless me, even me also, O my father." 



240 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

But his tears were unavailing, and his sorrow appears 
not to have been of that godly sort which worketh 
repentance. He grieved not that he had sinned, nor 
lamented his own folly, but wept merely at the con- 
sequences thence resulting. His sorrow was like that 
of Judas who betrayed his Saviour, when he saw the 
gulf into which he had plunged. It was rather for 
the effect than the cause. So, many a time and oft, 
the careless and stout-hearted sinner spends a long 
life in rejecting the invitations of his Saviour. Who 
so careless and gay as he, till at length death sum- 
mons him, the grave opens before his filmy eye, and 
a yawning hell stands ready to receive him, and he — 
is sorry. It is the sorrow of the world, which an 
apostle says worketh death. The damned in hell are 
sorry. There is weeping, and lamentation, and woe 
in the caverns of despair. I mean not to imply by 
these remarks that Esau perished finally. I see a 
gleam of hope in his after life, and I trust that though 
he lost his birthright he saved his soul ; but I have 
made these remarks to warn you against that fatal 
error of mistaking the sorrow of the world, which 
worketh death, for that godly sorrow which worketh 
repentance. 

That Esau's sorrow at this time was such as I have 
alluded to, is evident from the state of his heart as 
exemplified immediately after. " The days of mourn- 
ing for my father are at hand," says he, " then will I 
slay my brother Jacob." In other words, the old 
man is near his end, I will wait until he dies, then 
will I imbrue these hands in my brother's blood. 
"Whatever feelings of sympathy have been excited in 



JACOB. 241 

our breasts for the defrauded and weeping Esau, they 
cannot but vanish when we behold him deliberately 
forming the plan to take his brother's life, and appar- 
ently anxious for the old man's death that he may 
wring with agony his mother's heart by coolly butch- 
ering her beloved Jacob. He uttered his threats, it 
seems, openly. They were told to Rebecca, and now 
she begins to reap some of the consequences of her 
deceptive conduct. She is in constant fear lest her 
favorite shall be slain. Her life is disquieted with 
anxiety, and she dreads lest her lot be like that of our 
mother Eve when death first entered our world — the 
death of her son by his brother's hand. Perfectly in 
character with her former conduct, she imposes again 
upon Isaac, and obtains his consent to send Jacob 
away from his father's house, ostensibly that he may 
seek a wife from her kindred, but in reality that he 
escape the vengeance of his brother. " And now," 
says she to Jacob, " thy brother Esau doth comfort 
himself, purposing to kill thee ; now, therefore, my 
son, flee thou to Lab an, my brother, to Haran, and 
tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's anger 
turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou 
hast done to him ; then I will send and fetch thee 
home." Alas ! the fond mother knew not that she 
was sending off her son to see him no more. The 
few days which she designed him to spend with his 
uncle proved to be a period of twenty years, and 
long ere they elapsed the mother had, in all proba- 
bility, rendered up her account to God. In the mean 
time Esau married a wife from among the descend- 
ants of Ishmael. He removed into a province of 

16 



242 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

Arabia called Edom, or Idumea, where he became 
rich in flocks and herds. His descendants extended 
themselves throughout Stony Arabia, and occupied a 
region of country on the south of Palestine, between 
the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. Between 
them and the descendants of Jacob there were fre- 
quent and bloody wars ; but the Edomites maintained 
their independence until the time of David, by whom 
they were completely conquered, and the prediction 
of Isaac verified. 

Although it is anticipating the future history of 
Jacob, which will come to be considered more in de- 
tail hereafter, I will just now advert to the remarka- 
ble manner in which the deceiver was himself de- 
ceived, and which could not fail to impress upon his 
mind the righteous retributions of Heaven for his 
unkind and unbrotherly conduct. In the first place, 
he was most egregiously imposed upon by his uncle 
Laban, with reference to his wages and the wife which 
had been promised him. With his uncle he spent 
twenty years of his life in a state of toil and hard- 
ship, pathetically described by himself when he says, 
the drought consumed him by day and the frost by 
night, and sleep departed from his eyes. His domes- 
tic fireside was afterward embittered by the jealousies 
and mutual hatred of Rachel and Leah. Continual 
animosities prevailed among his own children, and 
his favorite son was the object of the hatred and envy 
of the rest, and at length, when himself bowed down 
by the infirmities of age, he became the dupe of his 
own children, who deceived him into the belief that 
his beloved Joseph had been destroyed by wild beasts. 



jacob. 243 

But let us pursue his history. Being thus dismissed 
by his mother he goes forth from his home, and, prob- 
ably for fear of Esau, hurries away secretly. Solitary 
and alone, with nothing but a staff to walk with, he 
pursues his way. The journey before him is computed 
to have been some four hundred and fifty miles, and 
the route lay through a dreary country, infested by 
savage and marauding tribes. An outcast and a fu- 
gitive, sad and bitter must have been his thoughts. 
His sin had found him out. He had time for reflec- 
tion and for repentance, and although the fact is not 
distinctly stated by the sacred writer, the result, I 
think, was unfeigned humiliation, godly sorrow for 
his sins, and a sense of his heavenly Father's merci- 
ful forgiveness. I am led to this opinion by the fact 
that afterward a great change appears in his moral 
conduct, and the fruit being good, I judge that the 
tree itself had also been made good. Further evi- 
dence of this fact is found also in the vision which he 
saw on his journey, and in the solemn vow which he 
then made to devote himself henceforth to the service 
of God. When the sun was set, and the shades of 
night drew on, at the close probably of his second 
day's journey, for he was now forty-eight miles from 
home, under the open sky, as is still common in east- 
ern countries, and with a stone for his pillow, he be- 
took himself to rest. "While thus sleeping he had the 
wonderful vision which caused the exclamation when 
he awoke : " How dreadful is this place ! " 

The design of this most remarkable vision was, 
evidently, first to show unto Jacob, and through him 
to all succeeding generations, the intimate connection 



244' OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTEES. 

subsisting between heaven and earth. It was a visi- 
ble manifestation and an affirmative answer of that 
question of the apostle relative to the angels of God : 
" Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to 
minister unto them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " 
And from it may be deduced, by all God's people, the 
assurance that in all circumstances they may rely 
upon his protecting care. 

But the vision may have had even a higher mean- 
ing. Jesus Christ, it will be remembered, in his in- 
terview with Nathaniel, alluded evidently to these 
ascending and descending angels which Jacob saw. 
" Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels 
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of 
man." By Jesus Christ, while on the one hand God 
has come down to man, on the other, also, man may 
ascend to God. Jacob's vision, then, may be regarded 
as symbolical of Him who, in the fullness of time, de- 
clared, " I am the way ; I am the door; by me if any 
man enter in he shall be saved." This being the 
glorious difference between the ladder which Jacob 
saw and the new and living way opened by Christ 
unto the holy of holies, that while by the former an- 
gels descended to earth, by the latter man ascends to 
heaven. 



jacob. 245 



CHAPTER II. 

THE CHANGE OF HIS NAME. 

We left Jacob on his way from his father's honse 
to the residence of his uncle Laban at Haran, in Mes- 
opotamia. On the morning after he awoke from the 
wondrous vision at Bethel, he took the stone upon 
which he had reclined, and set it up for a pillar in 
commemoration of that event. Mr. Morrier, in his 
second journey through Persia, notices a custom 
which seems to illustrate this act of Jacob. In trav- 
eling through that country, he observed that the 
guide occasionally placed a stone on a conspicuous 
piece of rock, or two stones one upon another, at the 
same time uttering some words which were under- 
stood to be a prayer for the safe return of the party. 
Nothing is so natural, adds this intelligent writer, as 
for a solitary traveler in a dreary country to sit him- 
self down fatigued, and to make the vow that Jacob 
did : " If God will be with me, and keep me in the 
way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and rai- 
ment to put on, so that I reach my father's house in 
peace, then shall the Lord be my God." 

It is the opinion of the Jews that this stone on 
which their great ancestor reclined his head was 
placed in the sanctuary of the second temple, and 
that the ark of the covenant rested upon it. They 
add, that after the destruction of that temple, their 
fathers were accustomed to lament the calamities that 



246 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

had befallen them over the stone on which Jacob's 
head rested at Bethel. "This stone," said Jacob, 
"which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's 
house ;" which idea seems to have been in the mind 
of the apostle when he calls the house of God, which 
is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground 
of the truth. 

It is worthy of a passing remark, too, that in the 
time of Edward the First, king of England, a stone, 
said to be the identical pillow on which Jacob re- 
clined his weary head, was brought to "Westminster, 
and to this day is placed under the chair on which 
the king sits at his coronation. It is a tradition not 
easily disproved, and not worth the trouble if it were. 
Let us keep to the record. 

In the further prosecution of his journey we find 
no incidents of importance. Under the protecting 
care of the Almighty he pursues his way, and at 
length reaches the fertile land of Mesopotamia, so 
called from its lying between two rivers, and known 
also as Padan Aram, or the fruitful Syria ; and ac- 
cording to Campbell, in his Overland Journey to 
India, still abounding with corn, oil, wine, fruits, and 
all the necessaries of life. " To be treading," continues 
this author, "that ground which Abraham trod, where 
Nahor, the father of Rebecca, lived, where holy Job 
breathed the pure air of piety and simplicity, and 
where Laban, the father-in-law of Jacob, resided, was 
to me a circumstance productive of delightful sensa- 
tions." It is supposed by many that in this region 
was situated the delightful garden of Eden, the orig- 
inal paradise, prepared and beautified by the wonder- 



jacob. 247 

working hand of Almighty love for his favorite, man. 
Blighted by sin and blasted by the deluge, it still re- 
tains some faint traces of its original fertility and 
loveliness. 

The account of Jacob's meeting with the flocks and 
shepherds of his uncle, his first introduction to Ra- 
chel, herself a shepherdess, and the conversation 
which took place on that occasion, are an admirable 
illustration of primitive simplicity, and bear incon- 
testable evidence of fidelity to truth. " And it came 
to pass when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob, his 
sister's son, that he ran to meet him, and kissed him, 
and brought him to his house." A reception, to all 
appearance, most friendly ; but Laban's subsequent 
conduct stamps his character as that of a selfish churl, 
an ungenerous miser. Dead to all feelings of natural 
affection, his own private interest seems to have been 
his only study. "When the servants of Isaac came to 
him bearing many and precious jewels, he received 
them with great courtesy, and willingly parted with 
his sister Rebecca. The gold and silver and costly 
raiment were strong arguments for Laban ; but now 
when that sister's son appears, friendless and alone, a 
poor man, he exacts from him rigorous service, and 
by fraud sells to him both his daughters for fourteen 
years of hard toil. 

In the after history of the Jewish people, God 
makes use of this incident in Jacob's life, his poverty 
and his toil, to keep up a spirit of humility among 
them. A Syrian ready to perish was my father, is a 
part of the confession every Israelite was required to 
make when he presented his basket of the first ripe 



248 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

fruits before the Lord. A Syrian ready to perish 
was my father ! and a recurrence to what we our- 
selves once were, and to the low station which our 
fathers occupied, will tend greatly to abate the 
pride and bring down . the haughtiness which 
otherwise might forget the rock whence we were 
hewn, and the hole of the pit whence we were 
digged. 

Jacob appears to have served his uncle with great 
fidelity, and at the end of the second period of seven 
years it was natural that he should desire to be dis- 
missed, that he might make provision for his own in- 
creasing family. This, however, did not suit Laban, 
whose flocks and herds had prospered wonderfully 
under the care of Jacob, and he was constrained to 
ascribe it, not only to his faithfulness, but to the 
blessing of God upon him. I have learned by expe- 
rience, says he, that the Lord hath blessed me for thy 
sake. Accordingly they entered into a new arrange- 
ment, which appeared to be greatly in Laban's favor, 
but resulted in the astonishing increase of Jacob's 
possessions. Jacob's conduct in this matter has been 
condemned as treacherous and dishonest. It is evi- 
dent, however, that the success of his scheme cannot 
be accounted for on natural principles ; and he him- 
self attributes it to the overruling hand of nature's 
God. And now arises a new source of trouble and 
anxiety. In his poverty and dependence he was con- 
tinually the subject of oppression, and liable to insult 
and injury. Now, his wealth being increased, he is 
exposed to the jealousy and envy of Laban and his 
sons. They accuse him of fraudulently obtaining 



jacob. 249 

the possessions which belonged of right to them ; and 
his prosperity, exposing him to envy and abuse, is 
scarcely more pleasant than his former state of pov- 
erty and servitude. The conversation between Jacob 
and his wives on this occasion gives a still more 
striking picture of the unpleasantness of Jacob's 
present condition, and exhibits the character and con- 
duct of the covetous and miserly Laban in still 
stronger colors. " Te know," says Jacob, " that 
with all my power I have served your father, and 
your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages 
ten times ; but God suffered him not to hurt me. 
And Rachel and Leah answered, Is there yet any 
portion or inheritance for us in our father's house ? 
Are we not counted of him strangers ? for he hath 
Bold us, and hath quite devoured also our money ;" 
that is, instead of treating us as daughters, and giv- 
ing unto us our inheritance, he has sold us like slaves, 
and applied the proceeds to his own use. "With the 
hearty concurrence of his family, therefore, while 
Laban was engaged with his sheep-shearing,- Jacob 
departs with all his possessions toward the home of 
his fathers. He took with him nothing but what was 
rightfully his ^own. His wife Eachel, however, it 
seems, had stolen her father's gods ; that is, the little 
images which he was wont to worship. It is sup- 
posed she was still superstitious enough to have some 
confidence in the ability of these idols to protect 
them on the journey. Another opinion is, and it is 
the more charitable, that she took them away to de- 
prive her father of his objects of idolatrous worship. 
In either case her conduct is blameworthy, and it is 



250 OLD TESTAMENT CHABACTEKS. 

evident that Jacob, in his hasty flight, knew nothing 
of the matter. 

Three days after their departure the news is 
brought to Laban, who immediately collects a suffi- 
cient force from among his neighbors and kinsmen 
and sets out in hot pursuit, evidently with the design 
to bring him back by force, and, if possible, to take 
from him those possessions which Jacob had fairly 
earned. Having, however, been warned against such 
conduct by the interposition of Jacob's God, he re- 
frains from violence, and now exhibits himself in the 
character of a canting hypocrite. " Wherefore," 
says he, " didst thou flee away secretly ? I would 
have sent thee away with mirth and with songs, with 
tabret and with harp. Thou hast not suffered me 
even to kiss thy sons and thy daughters, my little 
grandchildren." In this matter Laban acted the 
part of thousands who, when stung by the reproaches 
of conscience, endeavor by a smooth exterior to trans- 
fer the blame from themselves to the persons they 
have injured. Full well he knew that Jacob had suf- 
ficient reason for stealing away secretly. The con- 
duct with which he reproaches his nephew was the 
result of his own harshness and severity ; and yet, 
with great self-complacency, he throws all the blame 
on Jacob, and talks of the liberal and generous things 
that he would have done when there is no fear of his 
generosity being put to the test. 

"With great severity Jacob reproaches his uncle for 
his former conduct. " What," says he, " is my tres- 
pass, and what my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued 
after me ? These twenty years have I been with thee. 



JACOB. 251 

I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and 
six years for thy cattle. Thus I was," he continues; 
a in the day the drought consumed me and the frost 
by night ; and my sleep departed from mine eyes." 
With exemplary humility, too, and a devout sense of 
his dependence, Jacob refers his prosperity and suc- 
cess to its true source, the direct blessing of the Al- 
mighty ; " God," says he, " hath seen mine affliction 
and the labor of my hands. The God of my fathers, 
the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac has been 
with me. Ay, more ! this same God rebuked thee 
last night, and it was because of this rebuke that thy 
conduct has been so different from what was thy de- 
sign in commencing this hot pursuit with armed 
men." At this Laban seems to have been utterly 
confounded, and seeks to adjust the matter in the 
best way he can. At his instance, a covenant of 
peace is entered into between himself and his nephew. 
They gathered stones, and erected a pillar, upon 
which Jacob offered sacrifices to the God of his 
fathers ; and Laban, apparently touched with a sense 
of the superintending providence of Jehovah, said, 
" This heap is a witness between me and thee ; and 
therefore was the name of it called Galeed and Miz- 
pah ; for he said, the Lord watch between me and 
thee when we are absent one from another." A 
beautiful sentiment, used, as I remember, for the in- 
scription of a seal to letters passing from one who 
feared God to a friend from whom he was separated 
by an ocean. It was simply " Genesis xxxi, 49," to 
which his correspondent might turn and read the 
prayer of affection and esteem : " The Lord watch 



252 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

between me and thee while we are absent one from 
another." Then Laban, it is said, kissed his daugh- 
ters and his grand-children, bade them farewell, and 
this is the last we hear of him. That he was an 
idolater is evident from his anxiety to recover his 
images, gods as he called them, which Rachel had 
carried away with her. It is also clear that he had 
some knowledge of the true God, which he had prob- 
ably derived from his nephew Jacob ; enough, no 
doubt, if he had been so disposed, notwithstanding 
his naturally corrupt heart, to have secured his for- 
giveness, and a participation in the blessings of Jacob's 
God. 

After the departure of Laban Jacob pursued his 
way ; and, although cheered by a vision of angels, 
his heart failed him, as with his little band he entered 
the confines of Edom, the residence of his brother 
Esau. He had left him, it will be remembered, 
deeply exasperated at being defrauded of his birth- 
right. News was soon brought to Jacob that his 
brother, with four hundred men, was coming to meet 
him. 

It does not appear from the narrative that Esau 
had any hostile intention in coming to meet his 
brother. It may have been that he merely intended 
to do him honor as he passed through his territories ; 
but Jacob remembered his own unbrotherly conduct, 
and the threats which Esau had made twenty years 
previously, and he was greatly afraid and distressed. 
He betakes himself to prayer. In a spirit of deep 
self-abasement he exclaims, "lam not worthy of the 
least of all the mercies which thou hast showed unto 



jacob. 253 

thy servant." With heartfelt thankfulness he ac- 
knowledges God's goodness : " With my staff I passed 
over this Jordan, and I return so prosperous as to 
be able to divide my possessions into two bands." 
With faith he pleads the promises made by the Al- 
mighty to his fathers and himself: " Thou hast said, 
O God of my father Abraham and God of my father 
Isaac, thou hast said, I will deal well with thee." 
And now he intercedes for the safety of himself and 
those who were dear unto him : " Deliver me, I pray 
thee, from the hand of my brother, for I fear him, 
lest he come and smite me, and the mother with the 
children." After this he prepares a magnificent 
present for his brother, and, with his usual prudence, 
he so arranges his company and his intended gift as 
would, in all human probability, allay the anger of his 
brother and appease his wrath. He divides his pres- 
ent into three separate parts, with a space between 
each, directing his servants to say, each as he should 
meet his defrauded brother, " This is a present sent 
unto my lord Esau from his servant Jacob." 

He then seems to have tried to get a little rest ; 
but whatever sleep might fall to the lot of the women 
and children, or rest to the beasts of burden, there 
was little of either for him. He was now in the 
neighborhood of a small river called the Jabbok. It 
is a stream which falls into the Jordan, and according 
to modern travelers is exceedingly lovely. " Its 
banks," says Mr. Buckingham, " are so thickly 
wooded with oleander and plane trees, wild olives 
and wild almonds in blossom, with many flowers, the 
names of which were unknown to us, that we could 



254 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

not perceive the water through them from above, 
though the presence of these luxuriant borders marked 
the winding of its course ; and the murmur of its 
flow echoing through its long deep channel, was to be 
heard distinctly from afar." 

Unable to close his eyes, Jacob rose up, and having 
crossed this stream with his whole family and all that 
he had, he returned to spend the remainder of the 
night alone in communion with his God upon the 
other side. An instructive lesson this for all who 
may be placed in circumstances of a similar kind, or 
when from any cause separated from those in whose 
welfare we take a deep interest. If we can do no 
more, with the faith of Jacob we may commend them 
to that God who neither slumbers nor sleeps ; and 
such faith will beget that assurance which will enable 
us to exclaim with the poet : 

Under the shadow of thy throne, 

Still shall they rest secure j 
Sufficient is thy arm alone, 

And their defense is sure. 

" And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a 
man with him until the breaking of the day." Who 
was this with whom Jacob is said to have wrestled ? 
The circumstances of the case, as related by the sa- 
cred writer, will not allow the supposition which 
some have advanced, that this occurrence was imagin- 
ary, or the result of a mere vision. On the contrary, 
it is the narrative of a fact, and clothed in such lan- 
guage as could not fail to deceive a plain reader had 
anything else been intended. The sacred writer says 
it was a man with whom Jacob wrestled. There are, 



jacob. 255 

however, other passages of Scripture, which, taken 
in connection with the one before us, will more fully 
elucidate his person and his character. Thus, for in- 
stance, the Prophet Hosea, alluding evidently to the 
case before us, says of Jacob, he had power over the 
angel and prevailed. And the patriarch himself, after 
the occurrence, declares : " I have seen God face to 
face." Hence it is obvious that he who in one place 
is called a man, is in another styled an angel, and in 
still another is known by the august appellation 
which belongs alone to the infinite Jehovah. Who, 
then, was this mysterious wrestler? this being to 
whom is applied the titles, man, angel, God ? There 
can be but one answer to these questions. In the en- 
tire universe is but one being in whom these charac- 
ters concentrate. It is he who was one with the Fa- 
ther before the world was ; who was known to the 
patriarchs and the prophets as the angel of the Lord, 
and the angel of the covenant ; who, through his own 
free grace, took upon himself human nature, was. 
found in the likeness of sinful flesh, and became Im- 
manuel, God with us. On no other hypothesis can 
these declarations of the sacred writer be reconciled, 
and for them who believe the record he has given, 
and who have no theory of their own to maintain, no 
other is needed. On the one hand we see herein the 
humanity of Christ, and on the other the supreme 
divinity of the world's Eedeemer. Jacob wrestled 
with a man, and at the same time saw God face to 
face : he beheld his glory, the glory of the only be- 
gotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Let us notice now the reason given for his address 



256 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

to Jacob : " Thou shalt be called no more Jacob, but 
Israel : for as a prince hast thou power with God and 
with men, and hast prevailed." How had he power 
with God ? In what way did he prevail with him ? 
An answer to these questions is found in the language 
and conduct of Jacob on the occasion referred to. 
That language was an importunate request for a 
blessing, " I will not let thee go unless thou bless 
me ;" that conduct a persevering determination to 
press his suit, even although crippled in the encounter. 
Jacob probably was ignorant at first as to the person 
of his antagonist, but his seeking so earnestly a 
blessing at his hands is evidence that he knew at 
length that it was indeed He who alone can bless 
with those blessings which Jacob then sought. In 
order, therefore, to gain an adequate view of the true 
nature of this mysterious strife, we must look upon 
it, says Bush, not merely in its literal sense, but as 
an illustration of that secret inward struggle of the 
soul which forms the very life of all earnest and prev- 
alent prayer with God. In the exercise of wrestling, 
the highest effort of corporeal prowess is required. 
Every nerve and every muscle of every limb is called 
into play and put to its utmost tension. The whole 
energy of the frame is brought into action, and the 
least relaxation perils the issue of the conflict. 

Thus was it with Jacob's prayer : it was a wrestling 
with all the energies of his soul ; a determination to 
cease not until he obtained that for which he sought. 
" Let me go," says He with whom Jacob wrestled ; 
" let me go, for the day breakefh ! " What language 
is this ? What do these strange words imply ? Why, 



jacob. 257 

evidently, that the Author of every blessing would 
not leave him unless by Jacob's own consent. And 
now the heroism of Jacob's faith and perseverance 
shines forth with peculiar brilliancy. " I will not let 
thee go unless thou bless me." As if he had said, 
Let the day dawn ; faint and wearied and wounded 
though I be, I cannot, will not, give up my suit. 
Beautifully paraphrased by the poet : 

Wrestling, I will not let thee go, 
Till I thy name, thy nature know. 

What though my shrinking flesh complain, 

And murmur to contend so long ? 
I rise superior to my pain : 

When I am weak then am I strong ; 
And when my all of strength shall fail, 
I shall with the God-man prevail. 

And that was the moment of his victory. " Thou hast 
prevailed," is the language of his God ; and he blessed 
him. The shades of night were scattered, the dawn 
of another day was visible in the eastern horizon, and 
with it a flood of light and peace and joy broke in 
upon the soul of him no longer Jacob, the supplanter, 
but Israel, the victorious prince. Weeping may en- 
dure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. 

Omitting many practical inferences that might be 
drawn from the subject, I notice merely the answer 
here given to the question, "Why are the children of 
God called Israelites ? It is remarkable that they 
are so called, not only in the Old and the New Testa- 
ments, but in that upper city to which their earthly 
pilgrimage is tending. When Paul would embrace 

in his benediction all who lov^e the Lord Jesus, his 

17 



258 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

language is, " Peace be upon the Israel of God ;" 
and John tells us that the gates of the eternal city 
are inscribed with the names of the tribes of Israel. 
"Why is it so ? Why is that name so highly favored ? 
We should have thought the honor rather belonged 
to Abraham, a loftier, purer, lovelier character than 
Jacob's ever was, even when his name was changed. 
My answer to the question is, that Christians are 
called Israelites as a perpetual memorial of the occa- 
sion on which Jacob's name was changed, and of the 
reason given for that change. Even as Jacob became 
Israel, so only do the children of men become Israel- 
ites and heirs to the promises. Not by good wishes 
merely, not by the repetition of forms of prayer ; but 
by fervency, by importunate pleadings, by wrestling, 
do men prevail with God. Hence, says Christ, strive 
or, as the word means, agonize to enter in at the strait 
gate ; and hence the meaning of the Saviour's lan- 
guage : " The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, 
and the violent take it by force." 



JACOB. 259 



CHAPTER III. 

CONCLUSION OF HIS HISTORY. 

On the morning of the eventful victory which re- 
sulted in the change of his name to Israel, the dreaded 
meeting took place between Jacob and his brother 
Esau. Very different was its result from what the 
supplanter feared. Instead of blood, and carnage, 
and destruction, behold peace, and kindness, and fra- 
ternal affection. From the conduct of Esau, it would 
seem that he had buried all his resentment ; and if 
we may judge of his design by his actions, his object 
in coming with four hundred men was rather to show 
respect than to take vengeance. And Esau ran to 
meet him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, an act 
of affection totally unexpected, and which, indeed, 
Jacob had no right to expect. So, many a time and 
oft, in our own history, the cloud that has been rest- 
ing upon our horizon, and gathering increasing black- 
ness, has suddenly been dispelled, or broke in bless- 
ings on our heads. The two brothers wept together, 
and, mingling their tears, forgot the past in the joy 
of their mutual reconciliation. And what meanest 
thou, said Esau, what meanest thou, my brother, by 
all this drove which I met ? These, said Jacob, are 
a present to thee, my lord, that I may find grace in 
thy sight. With a manly spirit of independence, 
Esau refused his gift. I have enough, my brother ; 
keep that thou hast unto thyself; and only at the 



260 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

repeated and pressing solicitations of his brother did 
he consent to receive his present. 

In all the conduct of Esau, with the exception of 
his despising his birthright, and his threat to slay his 
brother, which was probably a momentary excite- 
ment, we see little cause for that reproach which by 
many has been thrown upon his memory. True, it is 
written, " Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." 
The expression, however, has reference to their pos- 
terity, and not to the individuals themselves ; nor are 
we to understand the phrase in that unrestricted sense 
which some give it. It is simply a Hebraistic mode 
of expressing greater love for the one and less for the 
other. I have loved the descendants of Jacob more 
than those of Esau. After this friendly interview 
the brothers separated, Esati returning to his home, 
and Jacob journeying toward the land of Canaan. 
Thither he arrived in safety, and having purchased a 
portion of the country from the Hivites, who then 
possessed it, he spread his tent and erected an altar, 
to which he gave the significant name El-Elohe Is- 
rael, that is, God, the God of Israel ; and it is re- 
markable that this is his first public recognition of his 
new name. 

And now everything bade fair for a residence of 
peace and quiet in the land which God had promised 
him. But, alas ! a greater affliction now falls upon 
him than any which had preceded it. His only 
daughter, incited probably by vanity or curiosity, 
ventures among those who had no regard for honor, 
and falls a victim to her temerity. How then, Israel, 
did thy heart bleed ! and, superadded to this affliction, 



JACOB. 261 

was the conduct of thy sons, Levi and Simeon. De- 
ceitful, barbarous, and bloody was the execution of 
their revenge for the injury inflicted upon their sis- 
ter. In the language of the old man himself when 
on his dying bed, for he appears never to have for- 
gotten the circumstances, " Simeon and Levi are 
brethren, instruments of cruelty are in their habita- 
tions. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and 
their wrath, for it was cruel. O my soul, come not 
thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine 
honor, be not thou united ! " This transaction ren- 
dered it unsafe for Israel to remain longer at She- 
chem. He had just cause to dread the vengeance of 
the tribe upon whom his sons had inflicted this bar- 
barous atrocity, and the patriarch was aware of his 
danger. " Ye have troubled me," said he to his sons, 
" and we being few in number, the Canaanites and 
the Perizzites shall gather themselves together against 
me and slay me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my 
house." 

While in this perplexity and trouble, God appeared 
to Jacob and said : " Arise, go up to Bethel, and 
dwell there, and make there an altar unto God that 
appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face 
of Esau thy brother." With pious zeal he obeys the 
direction given him, directs his family to put away 
there idols, for it seems that some of them were even 
then idolaters, and renews his covenant with God. 
While here death enters the family, and Deborah, 
who has been the nurse of Rebecca, and had been 
transferred to the family of Jacob, her favorite son, 
is called home. She was buried in Bethel, under an 



262 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTEES. 

oak, called by the family in commemoration of her 
worth, and in token of their sorrow at her death, the 
oak of weeping, or, as it is in the Hebrew, Allon- 
bachuthe. It is a little singular that th$ sacred writer 
records the death and specifies the burial-place of 
Rebecca's nurse, while no account whatever is given 
of the last hours of Rebecca herself. She had de- 
ceived her husband and imposed upon him when old, 
and blind, and sick, and a cloud rests upon her 
memory. 

Shortly after a still more grievous affliction befell 
him ; Rachel, the beloved Rachel, was suddenly 
taken from him, and under such circumstances as 
must have greatly aggravated his distress. She was 
buried at Bethlehem, a town which afterward fell to 
the allotment of the tribe of Judah, and memorable 
in all after time as the birthplace of our Saviour. 
■Very affecting is the simple record of her death, and 
at the same time an argument that the patriarchs 
well understood the doctrine of the soul's immortalitv. 
" It came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (her soul, 
mark, for she died^) that she called the name of her new- 
born babe Ben-oni, that is, the son of my sorrow ; but 
his father called him Benjamin," that is, the son of my 
right hand, or the son peculiarly dear to me. And 
Jacob set a pillar upon her grave, which Moses says 
was still standing when he wrote the history, nearly 
three hundred years after the event alluded to. 

Full of sorrow was the patriarch's cup at the de- 
parture of his beloved wife. A still heavier grief 
awaited him, and one which makes it a cause of re- 
joicing rather than of sadness that Rachel lived not 



Jacob. 263 

to be a sharer in it. Reuben, his eldest son, the be- 
ginning of his strength and the excellence of his dig- 
nity ; he who enjoyed the highest prerogatives among 
his brethren, degrades and dishonors himself by the 
commission of a crime of the deepest dye. Had such 
a wrong been done to the aged patriarch by a stranger 
and a foreigner, we can easily paint to ourselves and 
justify the mingled emotions of grief and indignation 
which the act must have excited in his bosom. But 
what is this compared to the anguish of recognizing 
the guilty perpetrator in one of his own household, 
in his own eldest son I It is as unnecessary, however, 
as it is painful, to dwell on this overwhelming blow 
to Jacob's domestic peace. It was done in secret, but 
Israel heard of it ; and not only so, but God so or- 
dered it that this flagrant deed of sin should be heard 
of, not by Jacob only, but by all who read the sacred 
story to the end of time. In the original Hebrew 
there is an abrupt breaking off in the midst of the 
verse, with a long empty space, indicating, perhaps, 
by an expressive silence the overwhelming grief of 
Jacob when he heard of this transaction. 

Scarcely less afflictive was the conduct of Judah, 
as related with all its enormity, and without any at- 
tempt at palliation or concealment ; but we are hast- 
ening to other sorrows which to the patriarch were 
still heavier than any he had yet experienced, and 
which proved almost too much for his endurance. 
And yet, as is well said by Dr. Robinson, to himself 
may be attributed much of the following calamity. 
He had laid the foundation for mutual jealousies 
among his children by a decided partiality, an avowed 



264 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

preference of one to all the rest. " Israel loved Jo- 
seph more than all his children, because he was the 
son of his old age ; and he made him a coat of many 
colors." 

This palpable and visible partiality excited the envy 
and jealousy of the brothers, and as we do not intend 
now to enter upon the history of Joseph, we may ob- 
serve merely the more prominent events of his life as 
increasing the sorrows and afflictions of his father. 
It appears that from this son Israel expected great 
things as he listened attentively to the dreams of his 
childhood. But soon were all his fond hopes blasted ; 
and one day while probably he was brooding over the 
sorrows of his past life, that coat, the coat of Joseph, 
his favorite, is brought to him stained with blood. 
With unpardonable cruelty they who bring the coat 
to the old man propose to him the question, Is this 
the coat of thy favorite Joseph ? See, it is bloody. 
Thus we found it in the field. Full well the old man 
knew the coat, and the conclusion to which he came 
was most natural. " It is," said he, " my son's coat ; 
an evil beast has devoured Joseph ; he is without 
doubt rent in pieces." Under this overwhelming 
conviction he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon 
his loins. He refused to be comforted, and said, " I 
will go down to the grave unto my son mourning." 
So have I seen the father, who has borne up bravely 
under the accumulated sorrows and afflictions of life, 
at the bedside of his dying son, or by the narrow 
house where they are slowly lowering his body, stand- 
ing like the gnarled oak that defied the tempest, now 
§cathed and blasted by the summer's lightning. The 



Jacob. 265 

mother weeps. She finds relief in tears. But the 
fountain of his tears is dried up. His heart is in the 
coffin with his boy. 

Base and unfeeling was the conduct of Israel's re- 
maining children in this matter. After they had 
inflicted this deadly wound, they pretend to adminis- 
ter comfort to their father in his sorrow. But they 
make no effort to seek the lost brother. Apparently 
careless whether he may be dead or alive, for twenty- 
two long years they keep within their own breasts 
the terrible secret; and not until the end of that time 
was it known to Jacob that his favorite son was not 
destroyed by wild beasts. 

After this event a considerable period elapses in 
which we hear nothing more of Jacob or his family. 
At length a grievous famine arose, of such long con- 
tinuance as to threaten entire destruction to all the 
neighboring countries. To procure food he sends his 
ten sons into Egypt, retaining at home Benjamin, 
who was the support of his declining years, and very 
dear to him after the loss of Joseph. Corn was ob- 
tained as a temporary relief ; but another affliction 
oppressed the aged patriarch, and it seemed as if he 
would have sunk under its weight. Simeon was de- 
tained a prisoner in Egypt, and Benjamin was de- 
manded. This was more than he could bear. In the 
anguish of his soul he cried out, " Me have ye be- 
reaved of my children. Joseph is not, and Simeon 
is not, and ye will take Benjamin away ; all these 
things are against me." He refused then to submit 
to the condition of parting with Benjamin. " My 
son shall not go down with you, for his brother is 



2G6 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

dead, and lie is left alone ; if mischief befall him by 
the way in which ye go, then shall ye bring down my 
gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." At length, 
however, the famine still continuing, he is reluctantly 
induced to consent to what appeared the harsh re- 
quirement of the governor of Egypt. " Take," says 
he, " a present to the man, and take Benjamin with 
you, and God Almighty give you mercy that he may 
send back your other brother and Benjamin. If I am 
bereaved of my children, I am bereaved." This last 
expression I look upon as the language of resignation 
to the will of God. It is as if he had said, If God 
sees best to bereave me of my children, so be it. I 
commit them to his care ; his will be done. If I be 
bereaved of them I am bereaved, and I must bow to 
his will. True, previous to this he had spoken rashly, 
and in his haste had said, All these things are against 
me. Perhaps he had murmured at the sorrows which 
came upon him, and which came not singly, but in 
fearfully quick succession. But now he appears to 
have regained, in some degree at least, his confidence 
in God. To his almighty care he commends his sons 
on their second departure into Egypt, and during 
their absence betakes himself to prayer and supplica- 
tion. 

Tedious and wearisome to the old man did the time 
pass on, and parental anxiety increased as the day for 
their expected return arrived and they came not. 
Bitter, doubtless, were his reflections, and strong his 
fears, even in the midst of his resignation, as alone 
in his old age he awaited the result. At length, after 
a long time, news is brought to him that a caravan, 



jacob. 267 

splendid in its retinue and appearance, is in sight. 
Whence came they? Evidently from the land of 
Egypt, for they bring corn and the products of that 
distant land. They draw nearer, and now Israel is 
assured that they are his sons on their return home- 
ward. Simeon is with them, and in another instant 
the beloved Benjamin rushes into his parent's arms, 
and proclaims his own safety. With an overflowing 
heart he renders praise and thanksgiving to the God 
of his fathers. All is well ; and yet he has not heard 
the whole nor the best of their news. Joseph, thy 
favorite, he whom the wild beasts devoured, over 
whose bloody coat thou didst shed such bitter tears, 
Joseph is yet alive ! nay, more, he is governor of 
Egypt ! from his hand are these costly presents for 
thee, his father ! It was too much. The old man 
fainted with excess of joy. Restored at length to 
consciousness, he listens to their tale, beholds the 
presents sent unto him, and with a full heart ex- 
claims, "It is enough ; Joseph, my son, is yet alive ; 
I will go and see him before I die." Yery much does 
his language resemble that put into the mouth of the 
father of the prodigal son on his return to his home : 
" This my son was dead and is alive again, was lost 
and is found." To the gifts which had been sent 
him he seems to have paid little attention, nor to the 
honorable station held by his son in Egypt. His whole 
soul is engrossed by the one cheering fact, My son is 
yet alive. 

Accordingly, as directed by Joseph, preparation is 
made for the departure of the whole family into 
Egypt. And God spake unto Israel in the visions 



268 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

of the night, and said, I am the God of thy father ; 
fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will be there, 
and make of thee a great nation, and I will go down 
with thee." Thus strengthened and encouraged, with 
a joyful heart he departs with his sons and his grand- 
sons, his daughters and his granddaughters, being in 
all seventy souls, into the land of Egypt. And Jo- 
seph, hearing of their approach, made ready his 
chariot, and went as far as Goshen to meet Israel, his 
father. With great simplicity and pathos is this in- 
terview described by Moses. When they met, Joseph 
fell on his father's neck, and wept on his neck a good 
while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me die 
since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet 
alive. Language that forcibly reminds us of the 
good old Simeon when he took the infant Jesus in 
his arms and exclaimed, " Lord, now let thy serv- 
ant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy 
salvation." 

But the hour of his death was not so near as he 
anticipated. Seventeen years of peace and quiet at 
Goshen, blest with the society of Joseph, and with 
the company of his children and grandchildren, yet 
awaited him. These, his last days, were doubtless his 
best and most pleasant. After the storms of his youth 
and manhood, his old age in Egypt is one of calm 
serenity and tranquil peace. 

" And it came to pass after these things that one 
told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick." Around his 
dying bed his eleven sons assembled, and presently 
Joseph, the governor of Egypt, leading by the hand 
his two little boys, Ephraim and Manasseh, makes 



Jacob. 269 

his appearance. They come to witness the last hour 
of their grandfather's life, and to receive the old 
man's blessing. The film of death obscures his vision, 
and he asks, " Who are these ? and Joseph said, 
They are my sons whom God hath given me in this 
place." The old man then embraced and kissed 
them, and he said, " The angel which redeemed me 
from all evil bless the lads, and let my name be 
named on them, and the name of my fathers, Abra- 
ham and Isaac." Then turning to his sons, he said, 
" Behold I die ; but God shall be with you, and 
bring you again unto the land of your fathers." 
"With prophetic inspiration he spoke to each with 
reference to their future destiny, and of Judah he 
left on record this memorable declaration : " The 
scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver 
from between his feet, until Shiloh come ! " By the 
Shiloh here spoken of all interpreters, ancient and 
modern, agree that the promised Messiah is meant. 
The prediction, then, was, that of the tribe of Judah 
should Christ come, and that the authority of the 
tribe should not be broken or destroyed until that 
event took place. Previous to the birth of Christ 
the tribe of Judah retained its integrity, the whole 
land being called from him Judea, the people Jews. 
But since that, as is well known, the scepter and the 
lawgiver are long since lost in Judah ; the tribe has 
lost the record of its genealogy, and either the promise 
to Judah has failed, or Shiloh, the promised Messiah, 
has indeed come. 

And now Israel, after having thus addressed his 
sons severally, with the spirit of prophecy gives 



270 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTERS. 

directions relative to his death and burial. "I am 
to be gathered," says he, " unto my people ; bury me 
with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of 
Machpelah, which Abraham bought for a possession. 
There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; 
there they buried Isaac and Kebekah his wife; and 
there I buried Leah." And now his work was done ; 
his last blessings had been pronounced, and at 
the age of one hundred and forty-seven years he 
gathered up his feet, and his spirit returned to God 
who gave it 

" So fades a summer cloud away ; 

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er ; 
So gently shuts the eye of day ; 

So dies a wave along the shore. 

" Life's labor done, as sinks the clay, 

Light from its load the spirit flies, 
While heaven and earth combine to say. 

How blest the* righteous when he dies." 

Such, then, is a brief epitome of the more promi- 
nent events in the life of him from whom the people 
of God in every age have derived their name. In 
ancient times they were known not as the children 
of Abraham or of Isaac, but as the children of Is- 
rael. The same title devolves upon the followers of 
Christ ; they are styled the Israel of God. It is 
implied evidently by this that, as in the case of their 
great progenitor, trials and afflictions await them in 
this sublunary state. Even after his prevalence with 
God in prayer, after his victorious contest with the 
wrestling angel, Jacob's life was one of unceasing 
sorrow until he went down into Egypt, an old man 



JACOB. 271 

bowed down with the infirmities of age ; and shall a 
Christian marvel at affliction as though some strange 
thing had befallen ftim ? Shall he not rather 
thank God and take courage, knowing that, in 
the language of the patriarch, he is but a pilgrim 
here, and that he is seeking an eternal city, a " home 
in heaven ?" 



272 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 



JOSEPH. 

■ ♦ 

CHAPTEE I. 

HIS EARLY LIFE. 

The history of Joseph is related by the sacred 
writer with great simplicity, and in language so 
chaste, touching, and forcible as to render any attempt 
to improve it altogether vain. The story has been 
told a thousand times, and just as far as those who 
told it have deviated from the narrative of Moses, 
just so far have they marred its beauty. It will be 
our object, therefore, to keep as closely as may be to 
the scriptural narrative, and to intersperse such re- 
marks as may tend to elucidate rather than to adorn it, 
to show the purity of the gold rather than to seek by 
gilding to heighten its luster. 

Joseph was the eleventh son of his father Jacob. 
He was born in Mesopotamia in the year B. C. 1747. 
From the natural sweetness of his temper and dispo- 
sition he was his father's favorite ; but most unwisely 
did Jacob allow his partiality to be seen, and in that 
family was verified the adage, a favorite has no 
friends. " When his brethren saw that their father 
loved him piore than all his brethren they hated him, 
and could not speak peaceably unto him." A little 



Joseph. 273 

incident is related which probably served to increase 
this feeling of enmity. Joseph was with his breth- 
ren on one occasion when they were feeding their 
flocks, and observed in their conduct some flagrant 
act of wickedness, the precise nature of which is not 
stated, but which Joseph deemed it his duty to make 
known to his father. Hence, as was very natural, 
they regarded him as a tale-bearer, a character always 
odious, and especially to those who are conscious of 
having done wrong. 

The relation of two remarkable dreams, indicating 
some kind of superiority which the dreamer should 
have over his brethren, still further increased their 
enmity. In the one he and they were binding 
sheaves in the field, and their sheaves stood round 
about, and did obeisance to his sheaf ; in the other 
the sun and the moon and eleven stars were repre- 
sented as doing homage to him. The whole family 
seem to have thought that these visions came from 
God, although it is said his father rebuked him, deem- 
ing it an impossibility that he and the lad's mother 
and their remaining sons should ever do homage to 
him ; while his brothers envied and hated him yet 
the more. Most remarkably, as we shall see in the 
sequel, was the interpretation verified ; and the ad- 
vancement of Joseph was brought about by means 
that in human probability seemed likely to defeat 
that object entirely. 

At the time of which we are now speaking, the 

family appear to have been dwelling in the vale of 

Hebron. Israel had purchased a piece of ground in 

Shechem, some sixty miles from their present resi* 

16 



274 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

dence. Thither, probably on account of its affording 
better pasture, the elder sons of the patriarch had 
gone with their flocks, and formed an encampment. 
" And one day Israel said unto Joseph, Go, I pray 
thee, and see whether it be well with thy brethren 
and well with the flocks, and bring me word again " 
The welfare of his sons, wicked as they were, was 
dear to Israel, and with a glad heart did Joseph, then 
about seventeen years of age, depart upon his lonely 
errand. Little did he or his father think that he was 
now leaving his paternal home to return again no 
more. But so it was ; and through a most wonder- 
ful series of adventures did Joseph pass, while severe 
and protracted were the sufferings of his father on 
his account. 

Having arrived in Shechem, the youth appears to 
have lost his way, and his brothers were not to be 
found. A friendly stranger whom he met gave him 
directions, and he pursues his journey until he ar- 
rives at a region of country called Dothan, in the 
neighborhood of Mount Gilboa. And now it is easy 
to imagine his emotions when he perceives at a dis- 
tance the flocks and tents of his brethren. Fatigued 
as he was with his journey, how he hastens to meet 
them ! He will give unto them his father's greeting ; 
he will recount the incidents that have transpired at 
home during their absence. In the gushing tender- 
ness of brotherly affection, he thinks of a thousand 
little things that will be pleasant for him to talk 
about and for them to hear. In the fullness of an 
affectionate heart he has already forgotten their ill- 
treatment, and is overjoyed that after his disappoint- 



Joseph. 275 

ments and wanderings he will soon be among friends 
and protectors. Very different were the feelings and 
sentiments of his brothers toward him. When they 
saw him afar off, even before he came near unto 
them, they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer 
cometh ! and they conspired against him to slay him. 
Come now, say they, let us kill him and cast him 
into some pit, and we will say some evil beast has 
devoured him, and we shall see what will become of 
his dreams. In the history of mankind we read of 
many acts of barbarous cruelty, but we know not 
that we meet with one, in the black catalogue of 
crime, that, when we take into the account all the 
circumstances, exceeds in atrocity the one now under 
consideration. Cain slew his brother, and has left a 
name infamous to all generations. Blood hath been 
shed in the olden time, and since, too, murders have 
been committed too terrible for the ear. But where, 
in all history, shall we find " nine men conspiring at 
once to kill a brother ; a brother so meek and gen- 
tle ; a brother even then upon an embassy of affec- 
tion and love ; a brother whose only faults were 
those natural to his youth, and for whose murder 
they could find no better reason than the fact that 
his old father loved him ? True, they made his dreams 
a pretense for their conduct ; and this very pretense 
heightens their guilt. Had they believed those 
dreams the mere illusions of the brain, they would, 
doubtless, have esteemed them little worth their at- 
tention ; but they regarded them evidently as coming 
from God, and hence their language, We shall see 
what will become of his dreams, is, in fact, an effort 



276 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

to overthrow the purposes of the Almighty, a chal- 
lenge to that God who had thus made known his 
will. It is evident, too, that his death was not now 
thought of for the first time. They had meditated 
upon the best means of getting rid of one whose con- 
duct was a continual rebuke, and whom they hated, 
and now the favorable opportunity presents itself: 
Behold, this dreamer cometh. 

To the credit of Eeuben, the eldest brother, it is 
recorded that he consented not to this barbarity. 
Seeing them bent on Joseph's destruction, and aware 
that it would be vain to oppose them, he suggests a 
plan whereby they might gain their object without 
shedding his blood. Let us rather, said he, cast him 
into this pit ; purposing to rid him out of their hands 
to deliver him again to his father. To the proposal 
of Reuben the brothers readily consent, and strangely 
quiet their consciences by mercifully changing the 
lad's doom from a violent death to the lingering hor- 
rors of starvation. Greatly does their consent to 
this purpose aggravate their unfeeling conduct. Reu- 
ben's design was to gain time, that, by some means, 
he might effect the lad's deliverance ; theirs that he 
might perish there by hunger, the most terrible of all 
deaths. With relentless hands they fall upon him as 
soon as he arrived among them. Deaf to his prayers 
and his cries, they strip him of his coat, that gar- 
ment prepared for him by his father in token of his 
love, and cast him into the pit. They saw, without 
remorse, as they afterward confessed, the anguish of 
his soul when he besought them and they would not 
hear. By the memory of their childish sports, by 



Joseph. 277 

the affection of their father, by the endearing name 
of brother, and by their hopes of heaven, he sought 
from them mercy, but in vain ! Reuben, it seems, 
was touched with sorrow at the lad's grief, and al- 
though they were following his counsel, and he hoped 
to release him soon from his agony, yet at beholding 
his tears and entreaties he spake unto them, saying, 
Do not sin against the child ; but they would not 
hear. 

The pit into which Joseph was thrown was proba- 
bly an excavation in the solid rock made for the pur- 
pose of holding rain-water. Such pits or cisterns 
were frequently walled up with stone, and, some- 
times, as we learn from the prophet, were by some 
neans broken and incapable of holding water. 
In such cases they were frequently used for the 
confinement of criminals; and Jeremiah himself, 
at the instigation of his enemies, was cast into a 
dungeon of this kind, where he was " like to die for 
hunger." 

We may imagine, but cannot, of course, describe 
Joseph's feelings and emotions when his brothers had 
accomplished their purpose, and he found himself 
shut up and left alone to perish; but as for those 
who had done the deed, removing probably at such a 
distance that they might not hear his cries, it is said 
they sat down to eat bread ; that is, they gave them- 
selves up to revelry and feasting. To the heartless 
conduct of these men on this occasion the prophet 
Amos evidently alludes when he denounces the con- 
duct of those who eat the lambs out of the midst of 
the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall, 



278 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

who chant to the sound of the viol and drink wine in 
bowls, but who are not grieved for the affliction of 
Joseph. It was not, however, the will of heaven that 
the youth thus abused and abandoned should perish 
in the pit. He remained there but a few hours, for 
while his brethren were yet at their feast, behold a 
company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, bearing 
spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down 
to Egypt. With these men, at the suggestion of Ju- 
dah, a bargain is made. Joseph is brought forth and 
sold as a slave for a sum equivalent to about ten or 
twelve dollars of our money. Notice here an almost 
imperceptible link in the chain of God's overruling 
providence. Had this caravan been a little earlier 
or a little later in its march ; had Joseph left his 
home a little before or a little after the time when he 
set out upon his journey ; had he not lost time by 
wandering out of his way, or had he not fallen in 
with the stranger who directed him to his brethren, 
he in all probability would not have been sold as he 
was, and so far as man can see, the whole course of 
his future life had been different. 

It seems from the narrative that Reuben, the eld 
est brother, was not present when the bargain was 
effected and the brother sold. His intention, evi- 
dently, was to have effected his deliverance, to send 
the lad back to his father. On going to the pit for 
that purpose he found him not, and gives way to im- 
moderate grief. His brothers, however, soon pacify 
him, and he agrees with them in imposing upon his 
father, and sending to him the bloody coat of his be- 
loved son, now sold into hopeless bondage. And 



Joseph. 279 

this, although doubtless it had been practiced before, 
is the first instance on record where man has pre- 
tended to acquire property in his fellow -man. 
Strange, is it not, that any man should claim a right 
to sell his brother's sinews, and soul, and blood ; that 
by any sophistry he should so impose upon himself as 
to believe that he has a fair title to hold and dispose 
of a being stamped with the signet of immortality, 
just as he would of an ox, or a dwelling, or a piece 
of land ! And yet from that day to the present 
there have not been wanting living examples of the 
same spirit which actuated the brethren of Joseph ; 
when man, because he has the power, will claim the 
right thus to devote his brother, 

And worse than all, and most to be deplored 
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 
With stripes, which mercy with a bleeding heart 
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 

There is no evidence that these Ishmaelites or Mid- 
ianites, as they are indifferently called, were cruel 
masters. They bought the youth in the way of trade, 
just as they might have bought a camel or dromedary, 
designing, doubtless, to make money by conveying 
him to Egypt and disposing of him to the best bid- 
der. In their system of morality, just as in the sys- 
tem of all who traffic in human flesh, it was a fair 
business transaction. It was legal too ; that is, so 
far as laws had anything to do with it, and those who 
bought the boy, whatever may have been the fact as 
to those who sold him, had no twinges of conscience 
from having violated the commands of Him who 



280 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

hateth oppression, and whose unqualified declaration 
is, All souls are mine. 

And now behold these merchantmen on their way. 
They have added to their chattels one slave, a youth 
of little comparative value in their estimation ; but 
O, how dear to a father's heart I For aught we know, 
they used him well ; it was their interest to do so, 
and men generally study their own interest. But as 
for Joseph he could not but feel 

A silent, secret, terrible control 
That ruled his sinews and repressed his soul. 
No longer for himself he waked at morning light, 
Toiled the long day and sought repose at night ; 
His rest, his labors, all his strength and health 
Were only portions of a master's wealth. 

On the arrival of the caravan in Egypt, they soon 
found a purchaser for the lad. He became the prop- 
erty of Potipbar, the captain of King Pharaoh's 
body-guard. 

The sacred historian leaves us to imagine what 
must have been the lad's reflections as his thoughts 
reverted to the past and to the probabilities of the 
future. He seems to have borne his hard fate with 
patient meekness. He even submits cheerfully to his 
lot, and with diligence performs the duties enjoined 
upon him by his master. The secret of this patient 
resignation is found in the fact that he had a quiet 
conscience, and in the assurance which the sacred 
historian gives us that in the midst of all these 
troubles God was with him. Nor did he attempt to 
deny or conceal his religious faith, as might have been 
expected under the circumstances in which he was 



JOSEPH. 281 

placed. On the contrary, he so lived even among 
the idolaters by whom he was surrounded that his 
master saw that the Lord was with him : an expression 
equivalent to that spoken of the disciples of the Sav- 
iour, when it is said that others took knowledge of 
them that they had been with Jesus, and indicating 
a course of conduct which at all times is well pleas- 
ing in the sight of God, as tending to advance His 
glory among those who know him not. 

Owing to his deportment and the manifest blessing 
of God upon his labors, Joseph rose rapidly in favor 
of his master, and he made him overseer over all that 
he had, and he left all that he had in Joseph's hand, 
and the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Jo 
seph's sake. Thus possessed of the confidence of 
Potiphar, we are happy to congratulate him upon 
the happy change in his condition, but a new and un- 
expected trial awaits him. " From a quarter which 
he little expected, a storm of temptation was coming 
upon him which threatened to make shipwreck of all 
that was precious and dear to him in time and eter- 
nity." And here we see the grace of that God whom 
Joseph served sufficient for him in an hour when 
without that grace he must have fallen. How can 
I, says he, in answer to repeated solicitations, how 
can I commit this great wickedness and sin against 
God ? How can I do it, and sin against God ? my 
maker, my preserver, my judge ! 

And this thought, thus forcibly expressed, would 
be, it ever-present to the mind, a strong dissuasive 
from every act of transgression. It is not that the 
sin will mar my own happiness, nor yet that by com- 



282 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 

mitting it I shall injure my neighbor, though both in 
almost every case are true ; but how can I do it and 
sin against God ? How can I, in my Judge's eye, my 
Judge's anger dare ? The immediate consequence of 
Joseph's conduct in this matter was his imprisonment 
witliin the walls of a gloomy dungeon. With a 
heavy heart, doubtless, did he enter that dreary 
abode to which, not his crimes, but his virtues, had 
consigned him ; and very mysterious did his lot ap- 
pear ; but even there he has that which alone can 
sweeten the bitterest cup, and which kept his soul in 
perfect peace. The secret is told by the sacred 
writer in his own expressive language ; he says the 
Lord was with him and showed him mercy. 

The physical sufferings of Joseph while in the 
prison are not dwelt upon by Moses ; but the Psalm- 
ist tells us that his " feet were hurt with fetters," and 
that " he was laid in iron." He was not only con- 
fined, but bound with chains ; treated as the vilest 
malefactor. How long he endured this severity is 
not known. It was probably but for a short season 
" as," says Moses, " the Lord gave him favor in the 
sight of the keeper of the prison," upon whose confi- 
dence and respect Joseph continued to gain, until at 
length all the other prisoners were committed to his 
care. While in this situation, a deputy-keeper, al- 
though a prisoner, two of Pharaoh's high officers, his 
butler and chief baker, were, for some offense given 
to the king, cast into the same prison, and placed in 
charge of Joseph. On a certain morning when he 
came in unto them behold they were sad, and on in- 
quiry he learned that this sadness arose from a dream 



Joseph. 283 

which each had had in the preceding night. We 
have dreamed a dream, say they, and there is no in- 
terpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not 
interpretations belong to God ? Thus designing evi- 
dently to call their attention away from the absurd 
pretensions of the astrologers and soothsayers to that 
infinite being whose he was and whom he served. It 
is He alone who can read the events of futurity, and 
by him was Joseph prompted to inquire from his 
prisoners what their dreams were. Having heard 
them, and being inspired, doubtless, with wisdom 
from above, he at once declares as the interpretation, 
that the butler should be delivered from prison and 
restored to his former rank, and that the baker should 
be put to a violent death. In both these cases he 
declared, moreover, that these interpretations should 
be fulfilled within the short space of three days, an 
evident proof of his entire consciousness of the truth 
of his prediction. In three days it would be seen 
whether he was, indeed, a man of truth and inspired 
by God, or whether, like the interpreters of Egypt, 
he merely guessed at the result. As further evidence 
of his confidence in what he had told them he makes 
a request of the butler : " Think on me when it shall 
be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, 
and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring 
me out of this house ; for indeed I was stolen away 
out of the land of the Hebrews ; and here also I 
have done nothing that they should put me into the 
dungeon." 

Joseph, although he bore his imprisonment with 
patience, earnestly desired freedom, and scruples not 



181 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

to use such means as wore within his reach to obtain 
it. lie did not suppose, <rf course, that the butler 
would have it in his poAver to release him, but that 
from his situation he would be enabled to speak of 
him favorably to the kino-, who, with a word, could 
throw open the doors of his dungeon. To remove 
any doubts on the mind of the butler, who might 
have supposed that Joseph was suffering justly for his 
crimes, and hence might fear to intercede for him, lie 
assures him that neither his imprisonment nor his 
slavery was the just reward of his own conduct. " I 
have done nothing," says he, M that they should put 
me into the dungeon." He does not bring a railing 
accusation against those from whom he had suffered 
this flagrant wrong, but merelv denies his guilt with 
reference to the charge brought against hint. And 
then, with regard to his bein£ a slave. / was stolen. 
says he, 1 was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews. 
Was that true I Did not Potiphar buy him ? Did 
he not buy him of those who had themselves pur- 
chased him for twenty pieces of silver I Most cer- 
tainlv ; and vet no one will hesitate a moment to 
admit that these pretended sales were all theft, and 
if he had passed into a thousand hands in succession, 
the last would have been no less guilty in the pur- 
chase than the first, for the simple reason that no one 
could have had a clear title to that which he pre- 
tended to sell. So with all traffic in human 
beings. The j^reat God declares M All souls are 
mine," and no human statutes can set aside His 
claims, or justify one mail in claiming ownership over 
another, 



joskph. 285 

But to pursue the story. According to a cmatOPfl 
generally prevalent among the monarch s of eastern 
nations, a great feast was made in Ijonor of the king's 
birthday. This happened on the third day after the 
interpretation of the dreams to whieh we have al- 
luded, and on that day was the interpretation of Jo- 
seph fulfilled to the letter. The ehief baker was 
called forth from prison and put to death by the 
king's command. The butler, on the contrary, was 
released from his confinement and restored to favor 
and put again in possession of his office. What rea- 
son the king had to make this difference between big 
servants we know not, but the result was exactly as 
Joseph had said, and gave evidence that God was in- 
deed with him, enabling him to predict with certainty 
the events of futurity. But the time of Joseph's 
deliverance had not yet come. The butler did not 
remember Joseph but forgot him. It was convenient 
to forget him. The incident is a very common one. 
Prosperity is exceedingly apt to induce forgetfulr. 
especially toward those who may be in low circum- 
stances. The prosperous man, when he has reached 
the summit of his hopes, looks back upon those who 
have helped him upward as upon a ladder now no 
longer needed, and to be kicked aside at his pleasure 
as altogether useles- 

Here, for the present, we leave the favorite son of 
Jacob. True, he i3 in prison, but his God is with 
him, and he is safe. True, he has nothing to hope 
from man, but his trust is in the Lord. Clouds and 
darkness are round about the imprisoned slave in a 
strange land, but the 'Lord showed him mercy. In 



286 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

another chapter we shall see these clouds disperse, 
and, as the successive scenes of his eventful his- 
tory are unfolded, we shall see how precious in 
the sight of the Lord are all they who put their 
trust in him, and how an overruling God can make 
all things work together for good to them who 
love him. 



JOSEPH. 287 



CHAPTER II. 

CONCLUSION OF HIS HISTOKY. 

We left Joseph in the prison of the Egyptian king. 
He remained there about three years, at the end of 
which time, when he had attained the thirtieth year 
of his age, the hour of his deliverance came. In the 
visions of the night God troubled Pharaoh with 
dreams which his magicians could not interpret. It 
is probable that had the same dreams occurred to any 
other than the king, these wise men would have given 
them some kind of interpretation. They professed 
to be able to read the future, and laid claim to super- 
natural skill in unraveling mysteries. But in this 
case, seeing the exceeding anxiety of their sovereign, 
they preferred to confess inability rather than to risk 
a guess which, if it proved false, would cover them 
and their craft with disgrace. 

At this juncture, happily for Pharaoh and for the 
whole land of Egypt, the chief butler is reminded 
that there is such a person as Joseph. I do remem- 
ber, said he, I do remember my faults this day. He 
then proceeds to narrate the circumstances of his 
imprisonment, his own dream two years before, and 
the ready and correct interpretation given thereof by 
the young Hebrew captive. With all speed Joseph 
is sent for. The king relates to him, with great mi- 
nuteness, the two dreams which had troubled him ; 
and I have heard, continued he, that thou canst 



288 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

understand a dream to interpret it. With great 
modesty Joseph disclaims the honor, and with equal 
piety declares that it is by the direct assistance of his 
God that he has any ability in this respect above his 
fellow-men. God, continued he when he had heard 
the dream, God hath shown Pharaoh what he is 
about to do. He then unravels the design of Provi- 
dence, and foretells seven years of great abundance 
to be succeeded by seven years of famine. How easy 
and natural everything appears when the interpreta- 
tion is given ! The river, by the side of which Pha- 
raoh stood in his dream, was evidently the Nile, 
upon the annual overflow of which the land of Egypt 
depends for its fertility. It is a country' in which 
rain seldom falls, and hence we see the propriety of 
associating the images of plenty and famine with 
that celebrated river out of which, in his dream, the 
king saw ascending the seven well-favored and the 
seven lean-fleshed kine, the seven full ears of corn 
and the seven blasted by the east w T ind. It is God, 
says he, who hath shown to Pharaoh what he is about 
to do ; and for that the dream was doubled unto Pha- 
raoh, it is because the thing is established by God, 
and God will shortly bring it to pass. 

With deferential respect the king listened to the 
advice of Joseph, who suggests means whereby, dur- 
ing the coming years of plenty, a supply of food may 
be laid up to ward off the horrors of the succeeding 
famine. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pha- 
raoh and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh 
said, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom 
the spirit of God is ? In the presence then of his 



Joseph. 289 

whole court, which was at that time the most mag- 
nificent upon the face of the earth, he turns to the 
young Hebrew : " See," said he, " I have set thee over 
all the land of Egypt." He caused him then to be 
arrayed in vestures of fine linen, put a gold chain 
about his neck, and took off his ring, the symbol and 
badge of authority and power, and put it upon Jo- 
seph's hand. 

And now is seen the beginning of the fulfillment 
of his interpretation of the king's dream. The earth 
brought forth in great abundance during the seven 
succeeding years, and by direction of Joseph, and 
under his superintendence, a part of this produce 
was laid by in store-houses, against the time of want. 
And the seven years of dearth began to come accord- 
ing as Joseph had said ; and the dearth was in all 
lands, that is in Egypt and all the neighboring re- 
gions, including Canaan, Syria and Arabia. The 
natural consequence of this famine was as Joseph had 
foreseen ; the inhabitants of other countries came to 
Egypt to buy bread. From the supplies which by 
his direction had been laid up during the years of 
plenty he was enabled to meet their wants, and in 
return for the food thus supplied, greatly to enrich 
the royal treasury. 

And it came to pass on a certain day, probably 
near the close of the first year of famine, among 
others who came seeking food from the governor of 
Egypt, were ten men from the land of Canaan. Their 
appearance indicated their calling, and on approach- 
ing Joseph they bowed down before him with their 

faces to the earth. At a glance the governor recog- 

19 



290 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

nized them as his own brothers, as the men who had 
hated him on account of his dreams, and by whom 
some fourteen years before he had been sold into 
bondage. It is not wonderful that while Joseph 
knew his brethren, they knew not him. "When he 
parted with them they had already grown to man's 
estate, while he himself was but a lad. Their coun- 
tenances he had, doubtless, frequently recalled during 
his imprisonment, while they had cause, if it were 
possible, utterly to blot from their memories the form 
and the features of one they had used so ill. Joseph, 
too, had reason to expect that these men would come 
for food during the prevalence of the famine, while 
nothing could be further from their thoughts than 
that their hated and persecuted brother should be 
found occupying a station of such dignity. 

To prevent still farther the possibility of recogni- 
tion on their part, Joseph addresses them by means 
of an interpreter, using himself the Egyptian lan- 
guage, with which they were utterly unacquainted. 
And he spake roughly unto them. In reply to their 
statement that they had come on an honorable errand 
to purchase corn, Joseph charges them with being 
spies. To see the nakedness of the land, says he, ye 
are come. By this means he drew from them the 
information which he could not otherwise have ob- 
tained without asking direct questions. We are, 
say they, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan ; 
we are twelve brethren, and behold, the youngest is 
this day with our father, and one, meaning Joseph, 
one is not. Thus he is satisfied that his father and 
Benjamin are still living, and, from the manner in 



JOSEPH. 291 

which they spoke, that they treated the old- man with 
deserved respect, and that Benjamin is now his favor- 
ite as himself had formerly been. Still further to 
try them, and to maintain the apparent severity of 
the Egyptian governor, he puts them all in prison, 
where conscience has time to do its work. "We may 
easily conjecture what were their feelings during the 
three days of their confinement. They said one to 
another, in the hearing of Joseph, for they supposed 
ha understood them not, " We are verily guilty con- 
cerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of 
his soul when he besought us and we would not hear ; 
therefore is this distress come upon us." 

While listening to their mutual upbraidings, and 
to the expressions of their unavailing regret, the 
heart of Joseph is touched ; the governor turns away 
to hide his tears ; and in order to prevent a prema- 
ture discovery, is constrained to retire and compose 
his feelings. As soon as he was able to control his 
emotions, he returned to them again, and after some 
further conversation, putting on an air of stern author- 
ity, he took Simeon and bound him before their eyes. 

In all this conduct of Joseph, severe as it was, 
there is no evidence of the indulgence of a vindictive 
or revengeful spirit. With all ease, had he been so 
disposed, he might at once have inflicted summary 
vengeance for their unnatural and cruel conduct. 
They were all completely in his power, and at a word 
from him wotdd have been led to instant death. His 
design appears to have been to test the sincerity of 
their repentance, and to prepare them gradually for 
the discovery he was about to make. 



292 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

Having resolved to retain Simeon, professedly as a 
hostage for their truth, and warned them not to come 
again into his presence without bringing with them 
their younger brother Benjamin, he dismisses them 
after filling their sacks with corn, and returning to 
each of them the money he had brought wherewith 
to purchase it. 

Great was their consternation when, in their re- 
spective sacks, they found this money. It was so 
strange, so utterly unaccountable. They overlook 
all secondary causes. " What is this," they say, " that 
God hath done unto us ? " Their father also shares 
in their apprehensions relative to the conduct and 
designs of this harsh Egyptian governor. Deep was 
the affliction of his soul when they told him that he 
required them to bring their younger brother Benja- 
min down into Egypt, and that unless they did so 
there was no hope of Simeon's release, and, indeed, 
no probability of obtaining any more food ; for the 
stern ruler had said, " Te shall not see my face ex- 
cept your brother be with you." At first the old 
man utterly refuses to part with Benjamin ; but at 
length the supply of food which they had brought 
was exhausted, and famine stared them in the face. 
The brothers now, for their own sakes and that of 
their families, endeavor by every possible argument 
and entreaty to induce his consent to part with his 
favorite for a little season, and Reuben, in his zeal, 
makes to his father this strange proposal : " Slay," 
said he, " slay my two sons if I bring him not back 
in safety. This proposition could, of course, have no 
effect. It indicated Reuben's anxiety; but to sup- 



Joseph. 293 

pose that the murder of his grandsons would be any 
alleviation to Jacob for the loss of Benjamin, was a 
most strange absurdity. At length, seeing no other 
prospect of preserving life, and feeling that every 
day's delay increased the affliction of Simeon, still a 
prisoner in Egypt, through the earnest entreaty and 
assurance of Judah, the brothers are again dismissed, 
and Benjamin is sent with them. " Send the lad," 
Judah had said, " with me ; I will be surety for him ; 
of mine hand shalt thou require him. If I bring him 
not unto thee and set him before thee, then let me 
bear the blame forever." 

By direction of the old man they took with them 
a present of such things as they had for the Egyptian 
governor, and were directed to return to him the 
money which they had found in their sacks ; perad- 
venture, says he, it was an oversight. They reached 
Egypt in safety, and their arrival being made known 
to Joseph, he gives orders for a sumptuous entertain- 
ment to be provided. Slay, said he to the steward 
of his household, slay and make ready, for these men 
shall dine with me at noon. This reception, so dif- 
ferent from the former, that being all harshness and 
this all kindness, produced, nevertheless, the same 
painful feelings in the minds of the brothers. Their 
accusing consciences were still at work ; they were 
afraid because they were brought into Joseph's 
house, probably more alarmed than when on the 
former visit they were cast into prison. There is no 
peace, saith my God, for the wicked ; and a guilty 
conscience is no less painful in a palace than in a 
dungeon. 



294 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

Relieved in some measure from their painful ap- 
prehensions by the courtesy of Joseph's steward, they 
are still anxious about the reception they shall meet 
with from his master. They cannot understand 
for what reason they were singled out from all other 
strangers to the honor of dining with him. But 
whatever might be his reasons for inviting them to 
his table, they hope the present sent by their father 
will recommend them to his favor. 

The dinner hour having arrived, three separate ta- 
bles are set out ; one for the governor by himself, 
another for the eleven strangers from Canaan, and 
the third for the Egyptian guests, who from religious 
scruples, refused to participate with those of other 
nations in their convivial entertainments. Joseph's 
first inquiry was for the welfare of his father. " The 
old man," says he, " of whom ye spake, is he yet 
alive % and they answered, Thy servant our father is 
alive, and in health," and as Joseph had seen them 
in his dreams when yet a little child, they bowed 
down their heads and made obeisance. The sight of 
his younger brother, Benjamin, awakens in Joseph's 
breast overwhelming emotions, and in order to con- 
ceal them, and prevent a premature discovery, he is 
obliged to retire for a few moments unto his chamber 
to weep, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother. 

And now a new scene of wonder arrests the atten- 
tion of the brothers. By Joseph's direction they are 
seated at table in the exact order of their birth, and 
this is done without inquiry on his part or informa- 
tion given by them. A distinguished mark of re- 
spect, according to the custom of Oriental nations, is 



Joseph. 295 

also shown to Benjamin. A portion is sent him five 
times greater than that of the others, and thus the 
conduct of the governor appears to them increasingly 
mysterious. By degrees, however their troubles are 
forgotten, and as the entertainment proceeds, they 
are made merry with the other invited guests. 

Early on the ensuing day the brothers are dismissed, 
and make preparations for their departure home- 
ward. Joseph, however, as will be seen in the sequel, 
had prepared for them a still more afflictive trial than 
any which had hitherto befallen them, one the design 
of which was to prove their affection for their brother 
Benjamin, and which, in its result, would satisfy him 
whether or not their dispositions had undergone any 
real change since their exhibition of envy and hatred 
toward himself. Loaded with civilities, provided 
with a supply of food for themselves and their fami- 
lies, Simeon restored to them, and Benjamin safe, 
they set out on their journey to Canaan with merry 
hearts. Blithely conversing together on the strange 
things they had witnessed, on the wonderful respect 
they had had shown them by the Egyptians, and an- 
ticipating the joy with which they should soon greet 
their father and their respective families, they are 
suddenly arrested by a messenger, who strangely 
charges them with base ingratitude, and with having 
stolen the governor's silver cup. Conscious of their 
innocence, they are thunderstruck at the accusation, 
and promptly deny it, expressing at the same time 
their abhorrence of such conduct. " God forbid," 
say they, " that thy servants should do according to 
this thing." Did we not return the money which, on 



296 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

a former visit, we found in our sacks ? and how is it 
possible that we should be guilty of such baseness as 
to rob a man of such high distinction ; to pilfer from 
the table of the governor who treated us with such 
marked attention ? With implicit confidence in each 
other, they demand to be searched, declaring their 
willingness to stake life and liberty on the -issue. If 
it be found with any one of us, let him die, and take 
all the rest of us for slaves. Search is accordingly 
made. Ten of them are acquitted with honor, and 
already are they beginning to exult in the detection 
of fhe falsehood, and the manifestation of their own 
innocence. But alas ! their triumph was premature. 
In the sack of Benjamin, the last which was exam- 
ined, the goblet is found. And what is to be done 
now ? To deny the fact were vain, and all attempts 
to palliate their brother's apparent guilt utterly use- 
less. We cannot pretend to describe Benjamin's 
consternation, nor to paint the agony of the rest. 
Had they not better leave the detected criminal to 
his fate ? There was a fair opportunity now to get 
rid of another favorite of their father's by means far 
less base than those by which they had formerly 
disposed of Joseph. Why not let the steward 
take Benjamin, the detected thief? it was all he 
asked, and then they might return to their expect- 
ing families. But no ! a different spirit possesses 
them ; the flood-gates of brotherly affection are open ; 
and they resolve, like brothers, to return to Egypt 
with him, if possible, to obtain his freedom, if not, to 
share his fate. Accordingly they are brought again 
into the presence of Joseph, who accosts them with 



Joseph. 297 

an assumed severity, while they prostrate themselves 
before him in the most abject and submissive sorrow. 
By common consent Judah acts as spokesman for the 
rest, but alas ! he knows not what to say ; and no 
wonder ! How could he justify or excuse Benjamin ? 
If he acknowledged his guilt, how could he plead in 
extenuation of such base ingratitude, or with what 
arguments could he hope to gain any favor for him ? 
His situation was, indeed, one of soul-harrowing per- 
plexity. He suggests that it is, indeed, a most mys- 
terious providence. " God," says he, " hath found 
out the iniquity of thy servants. Behold, therefore, 
we are willing to become my Lord's servants, both 
we and he also with whom the cup was found." To 
this offer Joseph objects on the score of justice. 
" God forbid," he exclaims, " that I should do so ; but 
the man in whose hand the cup was found, he shall be 
my servant ' x and as for you, get ye up in peace to 
your father." 

The address of Judah, in reply to this decision of 
the governor, is an inimitable model of unstudied 
and pathetic eloquence. Its greatest beauty is evi- 
dently its simplicity, and the power of his appeal is 
found in the picture which he draws of his father's 
gray hairs coming down with sorrow to the grave, 
and in his own magnanimous self-devotion to effect 
the deliverance of his unfortunate brother. " Now, 
therefore," says he, in closing his appeal, " I pray 
thee, let me abide, instead of the lad, a bondman to 
my lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren, for 
if he be not with us, thy servant our father will 
die I Let me rather stay, thy bondman, than see 



298 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

this evil that shall come on my father." With this 
address and the conduct of his brethren, Joseph is 
satisfied. He had seen and heard enough to convince 
him of the great change that had taken place in their 
temper and disposition. The affectionate manner in 
which they spoke of their father, their great anxiety 
to save the old man from the affliction of losing Ben- 
jamin, their generous self-devotion in his behalf, all 
indicate that they were not now as once they were, 
cruel, vindictive, and without natural affection. And 
Joseph could refrain no longer, but ordering all spec- 
tators to leave him, he gives way to the most tender 
emotions of filial and fraternal love. And he wept 
aloud, even so loud that the Egyptians in the other 
parts of the house heard him. These were doubtless 
strange sounds to them, but O, how mysterious was 
his whole deportment to the Canaanitish strangers ! 
The governor, so lately harsh and repulsive, now 
weeping and sobbing like an infant ! But soon the 
mystery is explained. The first outbreak of his con- 
tending emotions being over, he exclaims, " I am Jo- 
seph ! " and in the next breath pours out the tender 
inquiry : " Doth my father yet live ? " Not greater 
could have been their astonishment had Joseph ac- 
tually risen from the grave. With many kind 
expressions, their long-lost brother assures them of 
his forgiveness, and makes immediate preparation 
for their departure to Canaan, that they may bring 
down their father and their families and all their pos- 
sessions to reside henceforth in Goshen, one of the 
most desirable districts of the Egyptian king's do- 
minions. 



Joseph. 299 

We dwell not at any further length upon the his- 
tory of these brethren ; and the life of Jacob was 
fully considered in a previous article. The remain- 
der of Joseph's days were passed in tranquillity and 
honor. He lived to see his posterity of the fourth 
generation, having been in Egypt ninety-three years, 
thirteen of them a prisoner and a slave, and eighty 
a ruler and a governor. 



300 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 



DEBORAH. 



The biography of the Bible is not confined to one 
sex. Men, indeed, are most numerous and most 
prominent as priests and prophets, as soldiers and 
statesmen ; but woman has her place and the record 
of her deeds, not only in the quiet walks of domestic 
life, but in the more stirring scenes of religious teach- 
ing, of judicial decisions, of queenly power, and even 
of military adventure. On the same page that per- 
petuates the faith of Abraham, the filial fidelity of 
Isaac, and the wrestling perseverance of Jacob, we 
have also the matronly dignity of Sarah, the simple 
and unaffected hospitality of Rebecca, and the quiet, 
unobtrusive industry and devotedness of Rachel. In 
a later age, Moses and Aaron, under the inspiration 
of the Almighty, lead the people through the wilder- 
ness ; but their sister Miriam receives also the pro- 
phetic gift, and with timbrel and sacred song cele- 
brates the deliverance of Israel and the glory of 
Israel's God. So all through the sacred history. 
There are Yashti and Esther in queenly dignity; 
Naomi in her sorrowing weeds of widowhood, sus- 
tained and soothed by her daughter4n-law, the timid 
but decided Ruth, whose language, as she renounced 



DEBORAH. 301 

heathenism and embraced the religion of the Bible, 
finds its counterpart only in the energetic determina- 
tion of such strong-minded men as Saul of Tarsus. 
He asks the Lord, " What wilt thou have me to do ? " 
and resolved to do it. She declares, with all the 
energy of her soul, " Thy people shall be my people, 
and thy God my God." In the history of Jesus 
Christ, too, woman has honorable mention. I need 
not name Anna the prophetess, that model of pa- 
tience, waiting for the, coming of the promised Mes- 
siah, and serving God in the temple day and night, 
even when she had reached her eighty-fourth year ; 
nor the righteous Elizabeth, the blessed mother of 
John the Baptist, from whom that bold reformer 
received his first religious instruction ; nor Martha, 
faithful to her domestic duties, of whom, as of her 
sister, it is honor enough to say, Jesus loved her ; 
nor need I mention Mary : 

" Mary ! it is a lovely name, 

Thrice honored in the rolls of fame ; 

Not for the blazonry of birth, 

Nor honors springing from the earth, 

But what evangelists have told 

Of three who bare that name of old : 

Mary, the mother of our Lord ; 

Mary, who sat to hear his word ; 

And yet another, unto whom 

Christ came while weeping o'er his tomb . 

These to that lovely name supply 

A glory that can never die." 

As we have not only the bright examples of good 
men for imitation, so also, as blazing beacons on the 
shoals of time, we have the record of the ungodly, 
the profligate and the abandoned. 



302 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

So it is with the other sex. Women led the wisest 
of men into the most abominable iniquity. If Ahab 
was the most impious of the kings of Israel, his wife 
Jezebel was even worse than he. Sapphira has 
linked her own name forever as eolleaguing with her 
husband in lying to the Holy Ghost ; and the dancing 
daughter -of Herodias was worthy of the mother who 
gloated over the bleeding head of him who is de- 
clared to have been the greatest prophet of the old 
dispensation. 

"Widely different from any of these, and unlike in 
many respects any whose names are found in history, 
sacred or profane, is she to whose career this chapter is 
devoted : a woman of wonderful genius and of more 
than masculine energy, yet of truly feminine modesty ; 
at once the inspirer and the example of generous pa- 
triotism and military skill ; a poet pouring forth 
strains of martial music ; a judge deciding controver- 
sies with legal acumen ; a prophetess acting under the 
inspiration of the true God, and a soldier directing 
the armies of her country and leading them to 
victory. 

Of the parentage and early life of Deborah we 
know nothing. She lived in the dark days of Israel's 
history. For their national sins God punished them 
with war, and disaster, and defeat. They had been 
conquered and made captive by the Moabites, and 
served them for the long space of eighteen years. 
Then they cried unto the Lord, and he raised up for 
them a deliverer, whose name was Ehud. As the 
result of his victory the land had a season of pros- 
perity and peace. But a darker day was coming. 



DEBOKAH. 303 

Prosperity gradually induced forgetfulness of God. 
Pride, presumption, and idolatry followed, and the 
result was that the Lord delivered them into the 
hands of a relentless enemy, Jabin, a Canaanitish 
king, who, in the language of the sacred writer, " for 
twenty years mightily oppressed the children of Is- 
rael." The account of this long season of affliction is 
brief; but a few hints from the sacred writer, without 
the aid that our own imagination can supply, give a 
sufficiently dark coloring to the words " mighty op- 
pression." There was unceasing toil without the just 
rewards of honest labor : all the functions of govern- 
ment were in the hands of irresponsible tyrants : not 
a weapon of war, offensive or defensive, not even a 
shield or a spear, was to be found among the people : 
the land was infested with banditti, who plundered 
at their pleasure ; the public roads were unsafe, and 
those who traveled were obliged to skulk through 
byways, and make for themselves paths through the 
wilderness. The villages and country towns were de- 
populated, and the people huddled together and lived 
in crowded cities, where they might afford each other 
some little protection. Doubtless many a dark deed 
of rapine and lust and blood was perpetrated, of 
which the only record that was made will be found 
in the books that shall be opened at that day when 
every oppressor and every wrongdoer shall meet his 
victim at the bar of God. During these dreary days 
men became tame and spiritless. Every spark of 
patriotism seems to have died out. The remembrance 
of their ancestors excites no thrill of emotion, no de- 
sire to emulate their heroism. -The brave Joshua, 



304 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

who had led their fathers triumphantly into the 
promised land, had been in his grave little more than 
one hundred years. They had not forgotten his name, 
surely ! Nay, they had the inspired parchments that 
have come down to us which relate his heroic achieve- 
ment, and yet there is not a man among them whose 
soul is warmed by the brilliant luster of his example. 
Listless apathy and doggedness blot out the memory 
of the past, and over the clouded future despair flaps 
her raven wing. There are murmurings, indeed, and 
complainings like those versified by the poet : 

i: The world is cruel, the world is untrue ; 
Our foes are many, our friends are few ; 
No work, no bread, however we sue ! 
What is there left for us to do, 
But fly, fly from the cruel sky 
And hide in the deepest deeps, and die? " 

At this time there was living among this unhappy 
people, and sharing in their afflictions, a man whose 
name was Lapidoth. Frequently as you have read 
the Bible, that name has not a familiar sound. Tou 
don't remember to have heard it before ? I suppose 
not. Neither the name nor the man is of much con- 
sequence, save only that by some chance he had 
married a woman whose memory will live forever, 
and whose name will never die. All that gives any 
shadow of consequence to Lapidoth is the fact that 
his wife's name was Deborah. She appears to have 
inherited some property in her own right, for with 
her husband and her children she dwelt under a palm- 
tree, which the sacred writer calls not his, but hers : 
the palm-tree of Deborah. Prudent, discreet, and 



DEBORAH. 305 

amiable in all the relations of life, as a wife, a mother, 
and a neighbor, her reputation spread abroad among 
the people. Wherever she became known she was 
loved and esteemed, and soon it became evident that 
the popular voice did but ratify the appointment of 
heaven, and she is recognized as judge in Israel. 
This office implied a great deal more than is included 
in the office of a judge in our day. It was not merely 
the province of a judge to expound the law, but to 
execute it ; and the judge's jurisdiction extended not 
only to matters connected with religion, but to secu- 
lar affairs, and to all things pertaining to the general 
welfare. The judge, in fact, had almost absolute 
power within the limits of the constitution prescribed 
by Moses, and was supreme dictator, a king in every- 
thing but the name. Previous to this time three 
persons had been called to this office. The first was 
Othniel, the nephew of that Caleb who was the com- 
panion and associate of Joshua, the gallant leader of 
the hosts of Israel. He was succeeded by a Benja- 
mite whose name was Ehud, a left-handed man, 
but a brave soldier. Then a common laboring man 
by the name of Shamgar was called to this high office, 
of whom it is said that he slew six hundred of the 
Philistines with an ox-goad, and delivered his country 
from the oppressors. Two or three things with refer- 
ence to this high office are worthy of note. The first 
is that God himself selected the persons to be invested 
with this honor, and by some means made known his 
will to the people, and the office was not, as in the 
case of kings, hereditary. The family of the judge 

were not esteemed as royal, or possessed of any special 

20 



306 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

dignity, and the son did not necessarily succeed his 
father. The judge himself had no external badge of 
rank ; he wore no crown, nor regal robes ; he had not 
the power to levy taxes for his own support, and 
dwelt not in stately pomp within the gorgeous walls 
of a palace. 

In his wise sovereignty the God of Israel now de- 
signates Deborah for this high office, the first instance 
in the world's history of a female being invested with 
supreme authority. The people ratified the choice, 
and well did Deborah justify the wisdom of the ap- 
pointment. " Her canopy of state was the shade of 
the spreading palm-tree under which she had attend- 
ed to her domestic duties : her rule of judgment, the 
law and the testimony of the living God ; her guiding 
star, the inspiration of the Almighty ; her aim and 
object his glory and the people's welfare ; her reward 
the testimony of a good conscience, the respect of the 
nation, and the smiles of approving heaven. In com- 
parison with these, what trivial baubles are robes of 
ermine, ivory scepters, the golden throne, the glitter- 
ing diadem ! " But Deborah came into her high office 
at a time, as we have seen, when her people were in 
affliction — poor, degraded, and oppressed ; when they 
of the sterner sex, lost to all manly feeling and dead 
to every patriotic sentiment, seemed well content 
that it should be so. Suddenly, as from the blast of 
a bugle, there comes forth from the palm-tree under 
which Deborah dwelt the announcement that this 
state of things must come to an end. The female 
judge has determined that there shall be war against 
the oppressor ; that at least there shall be one blow 



DEBORAH. 307 

for liberty. A strange proclamation ! Did not the 
Canaanites laugh at it ? And Sisera, their bold cap- 
tain, with his well-armed troops, all trained to war, 
and his terrible chariots of iron, was it not matter for 
mirth that a woman is about to lead her unarmed, 
mean-spirited, faint-hearted, and ragged people into 
an utterly hopeless contest? But Deborah, acting 
under the inspiration of heaven, did not summon the 
whole of the people to the field of battle. She is 
content to call for only ten thousand men from the 
two tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, over whom she 
appoints, as general-in-chief, a man whom she deemed 
most competent for the task. His name was Barak, 
the son of Abinoam. Herein her innate modesty is 
strikingly displayed. She might have put herself at 
the head of her troops, and, like the far-famed maid 
of Orleans, clad in military garb, have led them to 
the fight. But no, she summons Barak, and puts 
that honor upon him. She gives him his commission, 
but he, faint-hearted, although satisfied that Deborah 
is acting under divine inspiration, declines the duty 
and the honor — unless, indeed, Deborah will go with 
him. " If thou wilt go with me," he says, " then I 
will go ; but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will 
not go :" a reply savoring at once of insolence to his 
sovereign and of cowardice unbecoming a soldier. It 
is possible that he thought the enterprise foolhardy 
and hopeless ; and that Deborah, being but a woman, 
would shrink from exposing herself to the enemy, and 
that thus the undertaking would be abandoned. Al- 
most any one else holding the position of Deborah 
would have resented Barak's answer, and sent him 



308 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

back dishonored and in disgrace. But she overlooks 
the insolence, mindful only of effecting the object of 
her heart's desire. Prompt and decided is her reply : 
" I will go with thee ; but mark what will be the 
result. Thou wilt lose the glory of the victory which 
God will give us, and which might be thine, and 
make the name of Barak forever famous. A female 
shall have the honor, for the Lord shall sell Sisera 
into the hands of a woman." Barak's manhood was 
not excited even by these cutting words, and having 
no further excuse to offer, he summons his ten thou- 
sand men, and Deborah being with him, leads them 
to the chosen field of battle. The place selected is 
memorable in history. It was on Mount Tabor, the 
sacred spot on which, as is generally supposed, the 
Son of God was transfigured, when his raiment shone 
with a resplendent luster surpassing finite compre- 
hension, where Moses and Elijah from their home in 
heaven came down to talk with him, and where the 
terrified disciples heard a voice from heaven — whose 
voice ? — saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom 
I am well pleased." Tabor is said, by those who 
have visited it, to be one of the loveliest spots in the 
Holy Land. It is a little south of an eminence known 
as the Mount of Beatitudes, so called from the fact 
that there Christ delivered that glorious discourse 
known as the Sermon on the Mount. From Tabor's 
summit may be seen at a distance, on one hand the 
Mediterranean Sea, spread out like molten glass, and 
on the other that more celebrated lake, the Sea of 
Tiberias. It is a conjecture put forth by a learned 
man, and I see no reason to doubt it, that Tabor is 



DEBORAH. 309 

but a corruption of Deborah, and that the name was 
given in honor of the first female judge, who selected 
that spot as the field of battle. Thither hastens Sis- 
era, the leader of the Canaanites, with an immense 
army, for he had " gathered together all his chariots, 
even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people 
that were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles 
unto the river of Kishon." Vastly different was the 
appearance of the opposing Israelites. Without mar- 
tial music or the trappings of war, they are a band 
of men unarmed, save only with such rustic weapons 
as had been used in their daily labor. But the race 
is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. 
The word of command comes from the lips of Debo- 
rah. It is similar to the language said to have been 
used by the Duke of "Wellington on the bloody field 
of Waterloo : " Up, Guards, and at them !" So 
Deborah said unto Barak, "Up, for the victory shall 
be ours !" And so it was : for " the Lord discomfited 
Sisera and all his chariots, and all his host." By 
what means God effected this object is not known, 
nor do we clearly understand the statement that "the 
stars in their courses fought against Sisera." Jose- 
phus says that a violent storm of wind, rain, and hail 
fell furiously upon the Canaanitish host and utterly 
blinded them. A modern poet has versified the 
scene : 

11 The Lord from heaven in thunder spoke, 

The Lord most terrible, most high, 
Sent forth his mighty voice, and shook 

The battlements of earth and sky. 
His wrath in storms of hail he showed : 
As burning coals his judgments glowed. 



310 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

" He launched the weapons of his war, 

His arrows of vindictive flame ; 
His lightnings with pernicious glare, 

And right inevitable aim, 
Before the rolling thunder flew, 
And all th' opposing hosts o'erthrew." 

The defeat was overwhelming ; the victory com- 
plete. And now we are introduced to a female char- 
acter very different from that of the modest and mag- 
nanimous Deborah. The vanquished Sisera, having 
escaped death in battle, flies for his life. Unattended, 
dispirited, alone, he pursues his flight until, utterly 
exhausted, he reaches the tent of one that he had 
reason to suppose was his friend. It was the dwell- 
ing of Jael, the wife of Heber. With apparent kind- 
ness she invites the fugitive to enter, and promises to 
keep him concealed from his pursuers. She said, 
" Turn in, my lord, turn in ; fear not !" and when he 
had done so, she covered him with a mantle. The 
panting fugitive, faint with thirst, asks piteously for 
a drink of water. With pretended kindness she gives 
him milk, and promises protection ; and Sisera, not 
doubting her sincerity, falls asleep. It was a sleep 
that knew no waking. With a fiendish malignity, of 
which there have been but few parallels in female 
history, Jael deliberately murders him. With a 
hammer in her hand, and a long sharp spike or nail, 
she stole upon him softly and smote the nail through 
his temples, and fastened it to the ground. Some 
have sought to find apologies and excuses for this 
bloody deed. I find none. It was a combination of 
falsehood, a breach of hospitality, an unjustifiable and 
deliberate murder; and she exulted in the deed. 



DEBORAH. 311 

" Come," said she to Barak, her hands dripping with 
the blood and scattered brains of her victim, " Oome, 
and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest." 
She led him into the tent, uncovered the ghastly 
body, and bade him gaze upon the deed. 

"We turn from her with loathing, and close with a 
few remarks relative to Deborah and her song of 
triumph when the victory was complete. In all her 
course of conduct we find nothing to censure. She 
exemplifies the modest graces which adorn the female 
character, and the virtues — patriotism, prudence, 
courage — which ennoble the other sex. With them 
all there is mingled and wrought into the fibers of 
her character a calm and confident trust in the God 
of her fathers. The sublime ode composed by her on 
this occasion is one of the oldest pieces of poetry in 
the world. It was written more than four hundred 
years previous to the date usually assigned to the 
birth of Homer, the great father of Grecian poetry, 
and is said by critics to lose much of its beauty by 
translation. It is not wonderful that in so ancient a 
poem, converted into the prose of a language so vastly 
different from the original, there are some things hard 
to be understood. There are two points, however, 
which stand out with great plainness. The first is 
that national punishments follow national sins. Such 
a picture of distress and suffering as Deborah's people 
presented previous to this deliverance is only what 
has been witnessed many a time in our world when 
men have forgotten God, and his vengeance has 
fallen upon them; when in wrath he hath said, 
" Shall I not visit for these things ? and shall not my 



312 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTEES. 

soul be avenged on such a nation as this ?" As in the 
case of these Israelites, so in every other. When God's 
judgments are abroad in the land, a nation's only hope 
is in his mercy. As with individuals, so with nations, 
there is no way of obtaining that mercy but by humil- 
iation and repentance ; by turning to the Lord, by 
ceasing to do evil, by doing justly. No man who 
believes the Bible can question these facts, and you 
can make the application without a prompter. 

The other point, which Deborah makes still more 
prominent, is that the glory of every victory belongs 
to the Lord, and to him only. She commences by 
calling upon the people to praise God : " Hear, O ye 
kings ! Give ear, O ye princes ! I, even I, will sing 
unto the Lord ! I will sing praise unto the Lord God 
of Israel !" She then dwells upon some of the inci- 
dents of the momentous struggle : alludes with great 
modesty to her own share in these transactions, and 
closes with an outburst of holy triumph, " So perish 
all thine enemies, O Lord ! But let them that love 
him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." 

And now the one practical lesson to be derived 
from this brief history has reference, not to those ac- 
tions in the career of Deborah which have rendered 
her name forever famous, but to that spirit of fidelity 
and fortitude, that faithful discharge of duty, which 
all may imitate, in whatever station God has placed 
them. Very few are called to fill positions like those 
which fell to her lot. Female judges and female 
leaders are rate in the world's history, and no other 
individual will have an opportunity to give name to 
a spot so full of sacred associations as Mount Tabor. 



DEBOKAH. 313 

But every one of us, male and female, lias duties to 
perform as imperative as those of Deborah ; and every 
one of us, by the faithful discharge of these duties, 
may write our names in that register which will en- 
dure forever, where they will shine with increasing 
luster when Mount Tabor has perished, and the world 
in which we dwell has been destroyed at the voice of 
the archangel and the thunderings of the trump of 
God. 



314 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



JOB. 



CHAPTEE I. 

JOB : PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

Some have contended that Job was a mere creature 
of imagination, and that the whole book which bears 
his name is a creation of poetic fancy. The contrary- 
is proved by the fact that he is mentioned as an actual 
personage both in the Old and in the New Testa- 
ment. Te have heard, says Saint James, of the pa- 
tience of Job ; and, in the prophecy of Ezekiel, it is 
written, Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and 
Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own 
souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God. 
That Daniel and Noah were living men there is no 
question, and the inference is fair that he who is thus 
associated with them by the prophet, or rather by the 
Holy Spirit, under whose influence the prophet wrote, 
was not a mere creature of the imagination. Nor is 
it likely that the apostle would refer to one who had 
no real existence as an illustration of patience, or as 
an example of the tender mercy of the Most High. 
Then, again, the concurrent testimony of profane 
writers confirms the same fact. Job is frequently 
alluded to by Arabian writers, and it is said that 
" many of the noblest families among the Arabs are 



job. 315 

still distinguished by his name, and boast of being 
descended from him." 

Where did he live ? In the land of Uz. But 
where was Uz ? This is a question not easily an- 
swered, and one upon which there are various opin- 
ions. We have, in the "Bible, two different persons 
who bear the name of Uz. The first is the grandson 
of Shem, the son of Noah, spoken of in the 23d 
verse of the 10th chapter of Genesis. In the 36th 
chapter of the same book we find, among the de- 
scendants of Esau, a man bearing the same name. 
By some the land of Uz is supposed to have been in 
Arabia Deserta ; by others in the valley of Damas- 
cus, which city is said to have been founded by the 
grandson of Shem ; and by others in Idumea. The 
latter supposition seems to be confirmed by incidental 
allusions of the sacred writers. Thus Jeremiah says : 
" Kejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that 
dwellest in the land of TTz" The same writer, in 
another place, speaks of the Icings of TJz in immedi- 
ate connection with that region of country. In effect, 
says an able writer, nothing is clearer than that the 
history of an inhabitant of Idumea is the subject of 
the book of Job, and that all the persons introduced 
in it were Idumeans ; in other words, Edomite 
Arabs. 

As to the time in which Job lived, although nothing 
definite on that point is said in the book itself, several 
circumstances conspire to fix it somewhere between 
the days of Noah and those of Abraham. To those 
who have given the subject but little attention, or 
who have fixed the time in which he lived merely 



316 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

from the location given to his history in the Bible, 
this may seem strange, yet a few facts will serve to 
make it, to say the least, very probable ; and the first 
that I shall mention is the length of his life. He 
lived, we are told, one hundred and forty years, after 
passing through the severe afflictions and trials which 
form the subject of his history. At their commence- 
ment he had been long settled in life ; his seven sons 
had grown up to man's estate, and were settled in 
their own dwellings. When young men saw him, as 
he says himself, they hid themselves, and the aged 
arose and stood up. Satisfactory evidence that he 
was not at that time a young man. He complains 
that they who were younger than he had him in de- 
rision, and says of them, " I would have disdained to 
have set their fathers with the dogs of my flock." 
If, then, we suppose that he had reached the meridian 
of his life at the beginning of his trials, we shall have 
two hundred and eighty years as his age at his death, 
which is a longer life than that of any one born after 
the deluge, and nearly double that of Abraham. 
Somewhere, then, between ISToah and the father of 
the faithful must be fixed upon as the time in which 
Job lived. As corroborating this opinion, it may be 
observed, that in all the conversations between him- 
self and his friends no mention is made of the de- 
parture of the Israelites from Egypt, of the passage 
of the Red Sea, of the pillar and cloud, of the manna 
that fell in the wilderness, or of the destruction of 
Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. 
From these events many arguments and illustrations, 
relative to the providence of God, might have been 



job. 317 

drawn by the speakers, and doubtless would have 
been, had they then taken place, for the providence 
of God is a topic on which they dwell largely. Nor 
is it at all likely that no allusion would have been 
made to the virtual offering up of Isaac, in which 
was so strikingly prefigured the sacrificial death of 
Christ, had that event occurred previously to the time 
of Job. I think, then, as already intimated, we are 
safe in assigning as the era of his existence, his suffer- 
ings, and his patience, the period between the deluge 
and the time of Abraham, that is, between the year 
from the creation 1656 and 2000. The celebrated 
chronologer, Dr. Hales, thus sums up an ingenious as- 
tronomical and historical calculation on this point : 
" Such a combination," he says, " of various rays of 
evidence, all converging to the same focus, tends 
strongly to establish the time of Job's trial as rightly 
assigned to the year B. C. 2337, or eight hundred and 
eighteen years after the deluge, and one hundred 
and eighty-four years before the birth of Abraham." 
But by whom was the book written ? On this 
question learned men have speculated largely. It 
has been attributed to Moses, and fancied resem- 
blances to his style and mode of expression have been 
pointed out. Others have argued with equal plausi- 
bility that Solomon was the author ; and yet others 
have credited it to David ; while as many contend 
that it was written by Job himself. I rather incline 
to this opinion, or, at any rate, that it was written by 
some one of Job's cotemporaries. If so, the book 
that bears his name is the oldest part of the Bible ; 
for Moses was not born until seven hundred and fifty 



318 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

years after the time in which, we have supposed Job 
lived. I state this, however, merely as an opinion, 
for the question will probably never be settled in this 
world, and it is, in fact, of very little importance. 
When I receive a letter from a friend, it matters not 
from whom he borrowed the pen with which it is 
written. Enough for me that it bears his signature, 
and that it is his handwriting. So with the history 
of Job. That it was written under the immediate 
inspiration of the Most High is unquestionable. It is 
God who here speaks to us. "Who was his amanuen- 
sis is of little consequence. 

As to the book itself, it is a poem. With the ex- 
ceptions of the first and second chapters, and the ten 
concluding verses, it is all poetry in the original ; and, 
as the best scholars tell us, loses much of its beauty 
in a translation. 

The characters presented in this dramatic poem, in 
addition to Job himself, are his friends Eliphaz, Bil- 
dad, Zophar, and Elihu. The wife of Job, Satan, 
and the great God himself are also introduced, but 
the main part of the poem is made up of a conversa- 
tion between Job and his friends. The first is Eli- 
phaz, called the Temanite, probably because he was 
a native of a city of Edom, spoken of by the prophet 
Jeremiah. " Hear," says he, " the counsel of the Lord 
that he hath purposed against the inhabitants of 
Teman" 

In the lips of Eliphaz are found many beautiful 
sentiments. He first gives utterance to the thought 
dwelt upon afterward so frequently by the sacred 
writers : " Happy is the man whom God correcteth, 



job. 319 

therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Al- 
mighty," quoted almost verbatim by the Apostle Paul, 
" My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord ;" 
and by St. James, " Blessed is the man that endureth 
temptation." A lesson that man even in this day of 
light, with the whole record of God's revelation be- 
fore him, is slow to learn. Who believes that he is 
blessed whom God correcteth ; and who thanks him 
for affliction? To the Temanite also belongs that 
beautiful illustration of a good man's death : " Thou 
shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock 
of corn cometh in his season." As the grain has 
passed through its successive stages, and at length, 
fully ripe, is gathered into the garner, so the good 
man, ripening for the harvest, ready to depart, wel- 
comes the hour when the great husbandman shall call 
him to his everlasting home on high. Like as a shock 
of corn cometh in his season ! 

One of the sayings of Eliphaz, relative to the afflic- 
tions of this life, has passed into a proverb : " Although 
affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth 
trouble spring put of the ground, yet man is born to 
trouble as the sparks fly upward." 

The most striking passage in the speeches of the 
Temanite, a passage unsurpassed in ancient or modern 
poetry, one which, if it had been found in the pages 
of Homer or Virgil, had been quoted as a master- 
piece, is that in which he introduces a messenger from 
the spirit-land : " In thoughts from the visions of the 
night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came 
upon me, and trembling which made all my bones to 
shake ; the hair of my flesh stood up. Then a spirit 



320 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

passed before my face ; it stood still, but I could not 
discern the form thereof; an image was before mine 
eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice." Thus 
illustrated by Mr. Hervey : " 'Twas in the dead of 
night ; all nature lay shrouded in darkness ; every 
creature was buried in sleep. The most profound 
silence reigned through the universe. In these sol- 
emn moments the speaker alone, all-wakeful and 
solitary, was musing on sublime subjects, when lo ! 
an awful being burst into his apartment. A spirit 
passed before his face. Astonishment seized the be- 
holder. His bones shivered within him, his flesh 
trembled all over him, and the hair of his head stood 
erect with horror. Sudden and unexpected was its 
appearance; not so its departure. It stood still to 
present itself more fully to his view. It made a 
solemn pause to prepare his mind for some moment- 
ous message. After a while a voice was heard. It 
spake, and these were its words : ' Shall mortal man 
be more just than God ? Shall a man be more pure 
than his Maker ? Behold, he put no trust in his serv- 
ants, and his angels he charged with folly.' " What 
a striking illustration of the infinite purity of the 
great God ; and what a rebuke, away in that early 
age, to that presumption which dares approach into 
his presence, save only through the merits and in the 
name of the great Mediator ! 

The second speaker in this colloquy is Bildad, 
called the Shuhite ; supposed by some to have de- 
rived that appellation from one of his ancestors, more 
probably from some region of country of which we 
know nothing. His most remarkable speech is in 



JOB. 321 

the 25th chapter, where he thus discourses of the 
majesty and purity of God : "Dominion and fear are 
with him ; he maketh peace in his high places. Is there 
any number of his armies ? and upon whom doth not 
his light arise ? How, then, can man be justified 
with God ? or how can he be clean that is born of a 
woman ? Behold even to the moon, and it shineth 
not ; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How 
much less man, that is a worm ; and the son of man, 
which is a worm." The great questions these which 
are answered only in the charter of man's salvation. 
Indeed, the whole design of the Bible is to give an 
answer to that most important question that ever 
harassed the human mind, " How shall man be justi- 
fied in the sight of God ? " Bildad could ask the ques- 
tion. God himself has answered it. 

The majesty and inconceivable greatness of God 
are also dwelt upon with great force by Zophar, the Na- 
amathite, so called probably from Naamah, a district 
of country mentioned in the book of Joshua. " Canst 
thou," says he, " by searching find out God ? Cahst 
thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? It is as 
high as heaven, what canst thou do ? deeper than 
hell, what canst thou know ? The measure thereof 
is longer than the earth and broader than the sea." 
"With all their knowledge of the wonders of the Al- 
mighty, these friends of the patient Job seem to have 
had little, if any, idea of his method of dealing with 
the children of men. They speak of him, as we have 
seen, eloquently as the God of nature ; they appear 
to have known next to nothing of the God of provi- 
dence and of grace. Their vision was bounded by 

21 



322 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEKS. 

this world. They everywhere assume that here, in 
this life, man is rewarded or punished for his works. 
The decisions of the great day enter not into their 
theology. Hence one of them asks, " Who ever per- 
ished being innocent, or when were the righteous cut 
off?" And another coolly informs Job that if he 
will return to the Almighty and put away iniquity — 
what then ? Why then, says he, " thou shalt have 
plenty of silver ; thou shalt lay up gold as dust, and 
the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks." With 
this theory — that the righteous necessarily flourish in 
this world, and are here rewarded for their works, 
and that God's judgments fall only upon the wicked — 
there was no other way of accounting for the heavy 
calamity which had befallen the friend with whom 
they came to condole. Thou art afflicted, therefore 
thou art wicked. Such was their logic. With great 
bitterness do they give it utterance. Is not thy wick- 
edness great, asks the Temanite, and thine iniquities 
infinite ? and without pausing for an answer he spe- 
cifies what he deems to have been some of Job's spe- 
cial sins. " Thou hast taken a pledge from thy 
brother for naught, and stripped the naked of their 
clothing. Thou hast not given water to the weary to 
drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hun- 
gry." Cruel taunting this ! and what warrant for it ? 
None whatever. But the speaker knew not how else 
to account for Job's afflictions. Hence he adds, 
" therefore, because of these things, snares are round 
about, thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee." 

It matters not that the afflicted man denies the 
charge ; and he denies it with great force of language, 



job. 32 



o 



appealing to the testimony of those who knew him 
in the day of his prosperity. " "When the ear heard 
me, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me, it 
gave witness to me, because T. delivered the poor that 
cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to 
help him. The blessing of him that was ready to 
perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart 
to sing for joy." Was this true ? Unquestionably. 
But Zophar charges his friend with falsehood and hy- 
pocrisy. It could not be true, according to his theory, 
else why did God afflict him ? " Shall thy lies," says 
he, " make men hold their peace ? and when thou 
mockest, shall no man make thee afraid ? Thou hast 
said," a thing, by the way, which Job never did say, 
" thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean 
in thine eyes." They charge him with having for- 
gotten his Creator : * Thou castest off fear, and re- 
strainest prayer before God." And they remind him 
in reiterated strains of the fate of the wicked, and 
assure him that the hypocrite's hope shall perish. 
They urge him to a confession of sins of which he 
knew himself guiltless, and exasperate his spirit by 
dwelling upon the calamities that had befallen him. 
How cruel the taunt relative to the sudden death of 
his sons. " If thy children have sinned against him, 
and he have cast them away for their transgression, if 
thou wouldst seek unto God betimes, and make thy 
supplication to the Almighty, surely now he would 
awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy 
righteousness prosperous." As if he had said : Thy 
children were cut off because of their wickedness ; 
thou art suffering for thine iniquities ; repent, there- 



324: OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

fore, and worldly prosperity shall return to thee. In 
all this we find no reference to the future world, no 
ray of light dawning upon the gloom of man's earthly 
career. 

The youngest of Job's four friends, Elihu, the Buz- 
ite, is now introduced. He had listened in silence 
hitherto, because they were older than he. Yery dif- 
ferent is the style and manner of his address. He 
brings no railing accusation against Job. He does 
not charge him with hypocrisy, or intimate that his 
afflictions were a punishment for his transgressions. 
At the same time he reminds him of the folly of his 
self-confidence, condemns him for trusting too much 
in external righteousness, and for arraigning the 
dealings of the unsearchable God. " Why," says he, 
" why dost thou strive against him ? for he giveth 
not account of any of his matters." Thus para- 
phrased by a learned commentator : " Is it not use- 
less to contend with God ? Can he do anything 
that is not right ? As to his giving thee an account 
of the reasons why he deals thus and thus, with 
thee or with any one else, thou needest not expect 
them ; he is Sovereign, and is not to be called to 
the bar of his creatures. It is sufficient for thee 
to know that he is too wise to err and too good to be 
unkind." 

Having thus dwelt upon the mysterious ways of 
the Almighty, and shown the folly of attempting to 
penetrate those mysteries, and the wickedness of ar- 
raigning God as unjust in his dealings, Elihu brings 
to light the glorious truth that there is a blessed here- 
after : 



job. 325 

M That God has marked each sorrowing day, 

And numbered every secret tear ; 
That heaven's eternal bliss shall pay 

For all his children suffer here." 

And how does lie do this ? And what his authority 
for thus throwing sunshine on the path of sorrow ? 
Hear him. Talking of the calamities of life in gen- 
eral, with special reference to those of Job in parti- 
cular, he says : " He is chastened also with pain upon 
his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong 
pain, so that his life abhorreth bread and his soul 
dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away that it 
cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen 
stick out, yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, 
and his life to the destroyers." A state of utter 
wretchedness and hopeless woe ! nay, not hopeless, 
for then, continues the speaker, then He is gracious 
unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down 
to the pit : I have found a ransom ; or, as it is in the 
margin, an atonement. I have found an atonement. 
In language enigmatical, and perhaps dark to those 
who listened to him, but to us who live in the noon- 
day light of the sun of righteousness perfectly plain 
and clear, he thus adverts to the regenerating grace 
of God, to the new birth, and the blessings conse- 
quent thereon, " His flesh shall be fresher than a 
child's, he shall return to the days of his youth. He 
shall pray unto God, and he will be favorable unto 
him, and he shall see his face with joy, for he will 
render unto man his righteousness." In other words, 
when led by the providences of God, by the afflictions 
of life and all things earthly, to seek mercy through 



326 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

that ransom which God hath found for him, he shall 
become a new creature, born again, a child of God. 
Being thus adopted into the heavenly family, he shall 
have the spirit of prayer, shall live under the influences 
of divine grace, at peace with God through our Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ, by whom he has now received the 
atonement, and he shall see his face with joy. The 
pure in heart shall see God! In the very spirit of 
the Gospel, Elihu opens still wider this door of hope. 
" God looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sin- 
ned and perverted that which was right, and it pro- 
fited me not, he will deliver his soul from going into the 
pit, and his life shall see the light." Beautiful adum- 
bration of the gospel of the blessed God ! A ray of 
light beaming away down into the darkness of that 
early age from the cross of Calvary, from the Lamb 
slain from the foundation of the world. God looketh 
upon men ; that is, his eye is ever upon them, he seeth 
them, he seeth us, and if any say, I have sinned, 
that is, if any confesseth unto God his transgressions, 
and lays hold upon the hope set before him, his soul 
shall be delivered from the pit of hell, and he shall 
see the light — the light of God's countenance beam- 
ing upon his pathway here, the light of his glory 
hereafter. 



JOB. 327 



CHAPTEK II. 

HIS TRIALS AND PATIENCE. 

We have discussed the questions relative to the 
time in which Job lived, the style of the book in 
which his history is written, and the peculiar charac- 
teristics of the friends who came to condole with him. 
The former part of his personal history is now to be 
considered — his afflictions and his patience. His 
querulous complainings and bitter lamentations are 
reserved for another chapter. 

As to Job's moral character, the sacred writer says 
he was perfect and upright ; one that feared God and 
eschewed evil. He was, moreover, a man of large 
worldly possessions ; the greatest of all the men of 
the East. Then, as now, riches conferred distinction, 
and men did reverence to the possessor of large 
estates. Then, as now, wealth was a snare to the 
soul, and a righteous rich man was a rarity. But 
Job was eminent alike for wealth and virtue ; the 
richest man in all the East and the most holy. 

He is first introduced to us as offering sacrifices to 
God in behalf of his children. " It may be," he said, 
" that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their 
hearts." He rose up early in the morning and offered 
burnt-offerings, according to the number of them all. 
This was his constant practice. In that early twi- 
light of the world's history it was thus, by sacrifices 
and burnt-offerings, that men evinced their faith in 



328 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 

the promises of God, and through them found access 
to the High and Holy One. Here, too, is additional 
evidence that Job lived at a very early period in the 
world's history. Noah acted as the high priest of 
his family. So did Job. But in the time of Abra- 
ham an established priesthood seems to have existed. 
Melchizedec, styled the priest of the most high God, 
blessed the father of the faithful, and Abraham paid 
him tithes. 

Job lived also in the personal enjoyment of the 
favor of God. " His candle," says he, " shined upon 
my head, and by his light I walked through dark- 
ness. The secret of God was upon my tabernacle ; 
the Almighty was with me." Of course he who thus 
loved God loved his neighbor also. I say, of course, 
for the two have been inseparable from the beginning. 

Then, as it was in the days of the apostles, as it 
always will be, he who loveth God will love his 
brother also. Job sympathized in the afflictions of his 
fellow-men. He wept for those who were in trouble. 
His soul was grieved for the poor. Nor was his sym- 
pathy evinced merely by tears, or his grief the ex- 
pression of his lips only. Driven to a justification 
of himself by the harshness of his accusers, he adverts 
in conscious integrity to his deeds of benevolence. 
" The stranger did not lodge in the street ; I opened 
my doors to the traveler. I have not seen any perish 
for want of clothing, or any poor without covering ; 
for he was warmed with the fleece of my sheep. I 
delivered the poor that cried and the fatherless, and 
him that had none to help him, and I caused the 
widow's heart to sijig for joy. I was eyes to the 



job. 329 

blind, and feet was I to the lame ; I was a father to 
the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched 
out." 

As the natural result of this uniform benevolence, 
Job had the esteem of his equals and the blessings of 
his inferiors. " The young men saw me and hid 
themselves, and the aged arose and stood up. The 
princes refrained talking, and the nobles held their 
peace. "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; 
and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me ; and 
the blessing of him that was ready to perish came 
upon me." 

At the time when the sacred writer begins his his- 
tory, his seven sons appear to have been settled in 
life. Whether this was the case with his three 
daughters, or whether they yet lived under the pa- 
ternal roof, is not so clear. They resided near each 
other, and were united by the ties of affection and 
love. The brothers and sisters frequently met at 
each other's dwellings. And his sons went and 
feasted in their houses, every one his day, and sent 
and called for their three sisters to eat and drink with 
them. Truly the sun of prosperity shone brightly 
upon his path. Not one element of happiness seems 
to have been lacking. Wealth was his, and health ; 
the endearments of the family circle ; sons and 
daughters loving and beloved ; esteemed by the good, 
feared by the wicked, respected by all, with the 
blessings of the poor, the fatherless, and the widow 
upon his head. Nor was this all. He had in addi- 
tion the calm consciousness of his own integrity, and 
enjoyed sweet communion with his Maker. The 



330 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEES. 

lines had fallen to him in pleasant places ; lie had a 
goodly heritage. I marvel not that he said in his pros- 
perity, I shall never be moved ; I shall die in my 
nest. Did I say in the cup of Job's happiness nothing 
was lacking ? I was wrong. There was wanting 
what man cannot have in this life ; there was want- 
ing the assurance of perpetuity, a guaranty against 
accidents and losses ; a something, like the rod of 
Franklin, .which wards off the threatening thunder- 
bolt, to protect him when the dark cloud rises, and 
leave him unscathed and safe when EzekiePs roll of 
lamentations and mourning and woe should spread 
itself over his dwelling-place. But there is no such 
thing. Neither has man's ingenuity invented, nor 
God's goodness promised, an exemption from advers- 
ity and affliction in this life. No, not to his own be- 
loved ones. It pleased him to make even the Captain 
of our salvation perfect through suffering, and it still 
pleases him thus to teach his creatures that this world 
is not their continuing place. Else might they never 
be ready to exclaim, as did Job when trouble came, 
" I would not live always." 

But to pursue the narrative. On one of those occa- 
sions to which I have adverted, a feast at the house 
of his eldest son, at which were present all his chil- 
dren, the father himself remaining at home, a mes- 
senger comes to him with evil tidings. Abrupt was 
his entrance, and without preface the announcement. 
The Sabeans have fallen upon the oxen, and having 
murdered thy servants, have carried them all off, and 
I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was 
yet speaking, another enters: The fire of God is 



' JOB. 331 

fallen from heaven, says he, meaning probably the 
lightning, and burned tip the sheep and servants, 
and consumed them, and I only am escaped alone to 
tell thee. Scarcely has this bearer of evil tidings de- 
livered his message when a third enters. The Chal- 
deans, says he, made out three bands, and fell upon 
the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and 
slain the servants with the edge of the sword ; and I 
only am escaped alone to tell thee. 

Thus was he stripped at once of all his wealth, re- 
duced suddenly to poverty. Possibly, from the fact 
that his possessions were so different from those which 
we are in the habit of regarding as evidences of 
wealth, we read his history with less interest, and feel 
for him less sympathy, than would otherwise be the 
case. Oxen, and camels, and sheep were the same in 
that day as real estate, and bank stock, and specie, or 
its equivalent, are in ours. "We shall see the severity 
of the blow if we fancy to ourselves our wealthiest 
neighbor receiving in one hour the news that, without 
fault of his own, he has been stripped of all his pos- 
sessions. By the knavery of men, and by judgments 
from heaven ; by fraud, by tempest, by fire, by light- 
ning, the rich man of yesterday is now a hopeless, 
homeless bankrupt. An hour since at the pinnacle, 
now at the base. Just in proportion to the height he 
had attained is the depth of his fall, and the severity 
of the blow. Nor need we draw on the imagination 
to illustrate the subject. From Job's day to ours, in 
the reality of every-day life, among farmers, and 
manufacturers, and merchants, even among those who 
were born in the ranks of the aristocracy, who never 



r» 



32 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 



knew toil, nor what it is to have a wish unrati- 
fied, there have been, and are, and always will be, 
living illustrations of God's own truth : " Riches 
make to themselves wings and fly away." Not in 
vain, though, alas! too generally unheeded, is the 
exhortation of the apostle, " Trust not in uncertain 
riches." 

This sudden plunge from wealth to poverty, from 
the height of prosperity to the depth of adversity, 
was, however, a small item in the afflictions of the 
man of Uz. On the same day that he received intel- 
ligence of his loss of worldly goods, another messen- 
ger appears with still heavier tidings. Thy children, 
Job, thy sons and daughters, are all dead. Dead, 
too, by a sudden and terrible visitation. In the 
midst of their revelry and merry-making, without 
warning, or a moment's space for preparation, they 
have passed into the eternal world, and thou art 
childless. Thy sons and thy daughters were eating 
and drinking wine in their elder brother's house, and 
behold there came a great wind from the wilderness, 
and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell 
upon them, and they are dead. Like Aaron's rod 
which swallowed up the rest, so these tidings com- 
pletely bury and overwhelm the news brought by the 
preceding messengers. What was wealth, his sheep, 
and camels, and oxen, to his sons and daughters % to 
those whom he calls his glory and the crown of his 
head ? To have prolonged the life of one child even 
for a season, to have had the privilege of ministering 
by his bedside in the agony of dissolving nature, to 
have had the mournful satisfaction of catching his 



job. 333 

parting breath, and to have given the last farewell to 
the departing spirit as she plumed her wing for the 
flight into the unknown world ; even this had been 
cheaply purchased by a large share of that for which 
the world looked upon him with envy. To have 
saved one of them from this sudden stroke, this un- 
timely death, he would doubtless freely have parted 
with his possessions, and deemed himself a gainer by 
the loss. 

In this bereavement we can all sympathize with 
him. Yery few of us have been hurled down from 
the height of prosperity, and though we may have 
met with worldly losses, they have been compara- 
tively trifling. But the visitations of death, and the 
departure of relatives and friends, the sundering of 
the ties that bind us together in bonds of affection 
and love, these we understand in all their bitterness. 
Scarcely one but has felt that desolation of spirit, 
that overpowering heaviness of soul which the last 
messenger leaves as his memento to the living, when 
the loved one, a child, a brother or a sister, a husband, 
a wife, a parent, passes slowly through the dark val- 
ley. We feel then, death, that thou art terrible ! 

" The pall, the knell, the grave, the bier, 
And all we know, or dream or fear 
Of agony are thine." 

I see the patriarch musing in his lonely house 
upon the goodness of his God. His children are at 
their elder brother's. It is, perhaps, a birthday festi- 
val. He is probably reckoning up his worldly pos- 
sessions, and meditating upon their division among 



334 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTEKS. 

his sons and daughters, when he shall have passed 
away to a better inheritance reserved in heaven for 
him. From his calm eye there beams forth the un- 
mistakable evidence of a conscience at peace with 
God, with himself, and with all mankind. There is 
no premonitory sadness at his soul. No cloud is ris- 
ing there to portend the severity of the tempest that 
is about to beat upon his head. The messengers of 
evil tidings enter one after the other in quick succes- 
sion. He has scarcely time to reflect upon the news 
they bring, or to question them relative to the truth 
of their statements. He has heard it all. He is 
penniless. The richest man in all the East is a pau- 
per. Still he has his children. His mind for a mo- 
ment reverts to his sons and daughters, his glory and 
crown. He had thought but now of leaving to them 
his wealth ; alas, he will go to them ! They will not 
suffer him to want in his old age. The thought was 
momentary. It was a drop of sweetness in his bitter 
cup. It was dashed away. Another comes : 

" His brow, like to a title-page, 
Foretells a tragic volume ; the whiteness 
Of his cheek is apter than his tongue to tell 
His errand." 

But he has told it. The iron has entered into the 
old man's soul. Now let us listen to his wailing 
lamentation. See there ; he hath rent his mantle ; 
he has fallen upon the ground. Come nearer, gently ; 
let us not roughly intrude upon his grief, but we may 
listen to him as he gives utterance to the emotions of 
his soul. Heard I aright ? Yes ; it is written here, 



job. 335 

as taken from his lips, " The Lord gave, and the 
Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the 
Lord." Call ye that a lamentation ? Is it the utter- 
ance of overwhelming grief? Sounds it like the 
melancholy wailing of despair ? O no ! it is the 
voice of calm submission, of hope, and trust, and 
confidence in God. Indeed, with a little transposi- 
tion, it might be made the utterance of grateful 
thanksgiving for benefits received. The Lord took 
away, and the Lord hath given ; blessed be' the name 
of the Lord. So near akin is the language of sub- 
mission in affliction to the language of rejoicing for 
blessings conferred. 

It is proper here to advert to the fact, and to spend 
a few moments in considering and explaining it, that 
Satan, the arch enemy of God and man, is repre- 
sented by the sacred writer as the agent who inflicted 
upon Job the calamities he endured. When the sons 
of God came to present themselves before the Lord, 
Satan, it is said, came also among them. By this, 
and the questionings of the Almighty, the replies of 
Satan, and the permission given him to harass and 
afflict Job, we are to understand that God reigns su- 
preme alike over men, and angels, and fallen spirits ; 
that it is only by his permission that our enemy tempts 
and tries the children of men, and that, consequently, 
we shall not be tempted beyond the reach of that 
grace which is sufficient for us. God hath said to the 
tempter, in all cases, Thus far and no further, and the 
severest trials and afflictions are among the all things 
which we are assured work together for good to them 
that love God. The Scripture speaks of God after 



336 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

the manner of men, and hence the revelation of his 
conduct in the matter under consideration. " As 
kings transact their most important affairs in a sol- 
emn council or assembly, so God is pleased to repre- 
sent himself as having his council likewise, and as 
passing the decrees of his providence in an assembly 
of his holy angels." At this assembly Satan is repre- 
sented as accounting for Job's piety by referring to 
his worldly prosperity. Doth Job serve God for 
naught ? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, 
and his substance is increased in the land ; but put 
forth thy hand now and touch all that he hath, and 
he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said 
nnto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power ; 
that is, thou hast permission to spoil him of his pro- 
perty ; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. 
The result of this permission we have seen. He was 
suddenly stripped of his possessions, and bereft of his 
children ; but in all this Job sinned not, nor charged 
God foolishly. And is it not enough ? Is not the 
victory complete ? So we should have thought. It 
would seem as if the malignity of Job's worst enemy 
might have been satisfied ; as if the goodness of the 
God he served would have permitted no further trial. 
" But his ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts 
as our thoughts." Satan insinuates that bodily afflic- 
tion will drive Job from his integrity. " Skin for 
skin," says he, "yea, all that a man hath will he give 
for his life ;" that is, and it is a truth though found 
in the lips of the father of lies, for life man will part 
with all he has. The passage had been more properly 
rendered, Skin after skin; that is, (for skins were an 



job. 337 

article of property and exchange in that primitive 
and pastoral state of society,) one thing after another, 
until he has parted with his all, will a man give to 
save his life. 

" The meanest and most loathed worldly life 
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
To what we fear of death." 

And Job lives. Nay, he has health, God's primest 
blessing. Poor, indeed, and childless ; yet is he free 
from pain of body ; he sleeps soundly, and in his 
dreams forgets his misery. The sun shines pleasantly 
upon him, the balmy breezes of heaven play upon 
his cheek. In his ear the harmonies of nature sound 
melodiously ; the singing of birds, the liquid lapse of 
murmuring streams, the music of the spheres. There 
is he in the vigor of manhood. To him our genial 
mother earth will yield her fruit, and toil will be re- 
lief. In his prosperous hours he knew not the bless- 
ings that are his who earns his daily bread by daily 
sweat, and finds that " weariness can snore upon the 
flint, when restive sloth finds downy pillows hard." 
Ah ! who thanks God for health, or blesses him who 
gives us leave to toil ? And Satan is represented as 
saying, " Put forth thine hand now, and touch his 
bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. 
And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine 
hand, but spare his life ;" that is, thou hast permission 
to inflict upon him the severest bodily pain that 
thine ingenious malice can devise. " And he smote 
Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the 

crown of his head." 

22 



338 OLD TESTAMENT CHAEACTEES. 

As to what was the peculiar nature of the disease 
thus described we know not. Some interpreters sup- 
pose the leprosy, others the small-pox. It is evident 
that it was accompanied with excruciating pain, and 
that it rendered the afflicted one an object of loath- 
ing and disgust. " My kinsfolk," says he, ".have 
failed, and my familiar friends forgotten me. They 
that dwell in mine house and my maids count me for 
a stranger. I am an alien in their sight. All my in- 
timate friends abhor me, and they whom I loved are 
turned against me." They let him sit alone in the 
ash-heap, fearing possibly the contagious nature of 
the disease. Human friendship was the same then 
as in our own day, and they thought it better to let 
him suffer on alone in his agony, than by ministering 
to his wants to risk their own lives. They preferred 
not even to look upon him, and he was, indeed, by 
his own account, a piteous spectacle. " My skin," 
says he, " is black upon me, and my bones are burned 
with heat. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods 
of dust ; my skin is broken and become loathsome. 
"When I lie down I say, "When shall I arise, and the 
night be gone ? and I am full of tossing to and fro 
until the morning. I have said to corruption, Thou 
art my father ; to the worm, Thou art my mother 
and my sister." 

I dwell not on this picture. Its dark shades need 
not to be heightened, and could not be if they did. 
The richest man in the East, a perfect and upright 
man, he who feared God and eschewed evil, who 
blessed his Maker's name when adversity came upon 
him, and bowed submissively to the stroke that left 



job. 339 

him childless, is there upon the ash-heap, a solitary 
sufferer. 

There was lacking yet one drop of bitterness in 
Job's cup of sorrow. In the wreck of his affections 
there was yet left him the wife of his bosom, the 
mother of his sons. And where is she ? Her proper 
place is there by his side, with gentle hand to minis- 
ter to hitf afflictions, with gentler voice to soothe his 
agony. But she is not there. • Day after day passes, 
but she is not there. She had left him, in spite of 
his entreaties, as he himself tells us. " My breath is 
strange to my wife, though I entreated for the chil- 
dren's sake of mine own body." 

At length, (I quote now from the Septuagint ver- 
sion of the sacred record,) much time having elapsed, 
his wife said unto him, " How long dost thou stand 
steadfast, saying, Behold, I wait yet a little longer, 
looking for the hope of my salvation? Behold, thy 
memorial is blotted out from the earth, together with 
thy sons and thy daughters, for whom with anxiety 
I have labored in vain. Thyself also sittest in the 
rottenness of worms night and day, while I am a 
wanderer from place to place, and from house to 
house, waiting for the setting of the sun, that I 
may rest from my labors and from the grief which 
oppresses me. Speak, therefore, some word against 
God ;" or, as it is in our own version, " Curse God 
and die ! " 

It needs not that I dwell upon this language, or 
paint the character of her who uttered it. I leave it 
as the sacred writer does, without comment. But 
we may dwell a moment upon Job's answer. " Thou 



34:0 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTERS. 

speakest," says he, " as one of the foolish women 
speaketh. What ! shall we receive good at the hands 
of God, and shall we not receive evil ? " How gentle, 
how utterly free from everything like harshness or 
severity, is this reply of the afflicted one. To her 
who had left him alone in his sorrow, who had been 
gadding about from place to place with profound 
selfishness, seeking comfort for herself, who visits him 
now only to upbraid, who bids him curse God and 
die, a keen retort, a severe reply might have been 
expected, if not justified. As we shall see in the next 
chapter, Job knew how to use the language of bitter 
invective and of biting sarcasm. But now he is all 
gentleness, and possessing his soul in patience, he re- 
minds us of Him who when he was reviled, reviled 
not again, but committed himself to Him that judgeth 
righteously. In this respect what an admirable pat- 
tern, and how easily imitated, is the language of the 
patient Job ! How, in that dark age, does he exem- 
plify the teaching that we profess to follow : "Being 
reviled, we bless ; being persecuted, we suffer it ; 
being defamed, we entreat ;" " not rendering evil for 
evil, or railing for railing ; but contrariwise blessing, 
knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should 
inherit a blessing." 

" Thus, too, the victory is gained. Man's strength 
Is utter weakness in the dreary hour 
When heavily affliction's hand falls on him 
In vain he nerves himself to breast the storm, 
Or brave its fury. His is not an arm like God's, 
Nor can he thunder with a voice like his. 
'Tis wisdom, then, in lowliness to bend ; 
And courage shows itself in calm endurance. 



job. 341 



To him who, like the tempted man of Uz, 
Blesses the hand that gives or takes away, 
•Who patiently receives or good or ill 
As seemeth best to wisdom infinite, 
To him belongs the palm of victory, 
Though friendless, poor, forsaken, desolate, 
And rotting on a dunghill. " 



34:2 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTEE III. 

CONCLUSION OF HIS HISTORY. 

Our course with, reference to the history of Job 
has been, thus far, plain and easy. We left him in 
the ash-heap ; victorious there, with the language of 
rejoicing upon his lips. In poverty, bereft of his 
children, friendless, diseased, we heard his calm reply 
to the unfeeling language of his wife, and that reply 
completely baffled the Tempter's malice. One blow 
after another fell upon his unsheltered head. He 
bore it 

" Like an unmoved rock, 
Not shaken, but made firmer by the shock." 

In all this did not Job sin with his lips. But our 
present task is more difficult. Before entering upon 
it let me make two or three remarks that may remove 
what is a stumbling-block in the way of many. I 
mean the obscurity of some parts of the sacred 
record. Peter's assertion relative to the writings of 
the Apostle Paul, " in which," says he, " are some 
things hard to be understood," is eminently true of 
the book of Job. 

The difficulty arises from various causes; among 
which may be mentioned the fact that it was written 
in a language which has long since ceased to be a ve- 
hicle of thought among the nations of the earth. 
Hence the very great difficulty of translating it with 
accuracy. In all translations, too, as is well known, 



job. 343 

much of the spirit of the original necessarily evapo- 
rates. It is impossible to bend the idiom of one lan- 
guage in the precise direction of another. From its 
great antiquity, too, it is not strange that we here 
meet with allusions to customs and opinions, the 
memory of which has long since perished. These 
allusions, we may suppose, were once perfectly plain ; 
although now they are enigmatic and obscure. Added 
to this, the mental process, the trains of thought of 
those for whose benefit the book was first written, 
were very different from our own, to such an extent 
that it is impossible even for the imagination to lift 
the vail, the dark vail of thirty centuries, and place 
ourselves in the midst of these Idumean Arabs, and 
think, and talk, and feel as they thought, and felt, 
and spoke. The light in the midst of which we live, 
a light which has been steadily rising in the moral 
firmament, and increasing in brightness, serves but to 
render the twilight of that age the more palpable and. 
obscure. 

Then, again, in answer to an objection sometimes 
urged, I remark it was never the intention of the Al- 
mighty to make the entire record of his revealed 
will so perfectly plain as to require from man no 
thought, no study. While there are parts of the Bible 
level to the lowest capacity, and the most ignorant 
may gather thence instruction enough to sanctify the 
soul, there is room for the patient investigation of 
the most profound intellect. As in the book of nature 
spread open before us there are incomprehensible 
mysteries, so may we expect to meet them in the book 
of revelation proceeding from the same God, It is 



344 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

Jhis direction to us all, the high and the low, the ig- 
norant and the educated, " Search the Scriptures." 

I proceed with the history. Since the close of our 
last chapter, which left the afflicted one triumphantly 
trusting in God, an interval has come ; three of his 
friends, by mutual agreement, have paid him a visit. 
They are affected to tears at the sight of his suffer- 
ings. They lift up their voice and weep. For seven 
days and nights they sat down by him upon the 
ground, and no word was uttered, for they saw that 
his grief was very great. At length Job himself 
opened his mouth ; but very different is his language 
from what it was a week ago. The man seems to be 
totally changed. He is now querulous, bitter, harsh. 
He curses the day of his birth ; he is severely sarcastic 
upon those who came to condole with him ; he prides 
himself upon his integrity, his righteousness, and 
boasts of it. "Let the day perish when I was born; 
let that day be darkness ; neither let the light shine 
upon it, because it hid not sorrow from mine eyes." 
" Or why," he continues in the same bitter strain, - 
" why did I not die in infancy ? For now should I 
have lain still, and been quiet in the grave. There 
the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary 
be at rest. The small and the great are there, and 
the servant is free from his master." He seems to 
reproach his Maker for continuing his existence. 
" Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, 
and life unto the bitter in soul who long for death, 
but it cometh not ? " He entreats the Almighty to 
cut short the thread of his existence : " O that I 
might have my request, and that God would grant 



job. 345 

me the tiling that I long for ! even that it would 
please God to destroy me, that he would loose his 
hand and cut me off." The harsh language of his pro- 
fessed friends he retorts with increasing bitterness. 
In reply to their exhortations, founded as they were 
upon the erroneous supposition that Job was now re- 
ceiving punishment for his sins, he exclaims in the 
severest irony : " No doubt but ye are the people, 
and wisdom shall die with you ;" that is, all wisdom 
is concentrated in you ; and when ye die, wisdom 
shall utterly perish from the earth. Alluding to the 
wise proverbs they had adduced, bearing upon God's 
general government of the world, he says : " I have 
heard many such things; miserable comforters are 
ye all. I also could speak as ye do ; if your soul 
were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against 
you, and shake mine head at you ;" that is, if ye were 
the afflicted, and I had health and prosperity as you 
have, it would be easy to quote against you these tru- 
isms, to torture you with charges of hypocrisy, and to 
shake mine head ; to insinuate even more than I 
dare utter in words. But ye are forgers of lies ; ye 
are all physicians of no value ; ye pervert the truth 
to sustain your arguments. 

In accounting for this change of conduct on the 
part of Job, this style of language so different, so 
totally at variance with the humility and submissive 
resignation evinced by him in the first week of his 
trials, it is not enough to advert to the unfeeling 
course pursued by those who call themselves his 
friends. That they were wrong is unquestionable, 
but their wrong does not justify Job in his equally 



346 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

harsh retaliation ; much less in the severe reflections 
in which he seems to question the justice of God, and 
to have forgotten his own noble sentiment : " Shall 
we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall 
we not receive evil ? " The fact is, that not till now 
did the afflicted one enter into the deep waters of his 
trials. Hitherto the machinations of the enemy had 
been directed against his property, his family, and 
his health. He bore up manfully against all these 
privations ; but now a horror of thick darkness falls 
upon his soul. Satan appears to have access to his 
mind, to fill it with doubt, and distrust, and fear. It 
is the spiritual conflict, the wrestling not with flesh 
and blood, but with principalities, and powers, and 
the rulers of the darkness of this world. 'Tis a fear- 
ful conflict, showing in vivid colors the weakness of 
the strongest, and attesting to all men in all genera- 
tions that in the assaults of the grand adversary upon 
the soul, unaided man at his best estate is altogether 
vanity. For a time, too, and for wise purposes, as 
we shall see, the light of God's countenance appears 
to have been withdrawn from his afflicted servant, 
and in this extremity he answers the description of 
the prophet, " Who is among you that feareth the 
Lord ; that obeyeth the voice of his servant ; that 
walketh in darkness and hath no light V 9 He feared 
the Lord and obeyed his commandments, and yet was 
permitted a while to walk in darkness and have no light. 
And was it not even so with the spotless Son of God ? 
We hear him exclaim, " This is your hour and the 
power of darkness ; my soul is exceeding sorrowful, 
even unto death ; my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" 



job. 347 

Let us listen to the wailing lamentations of Job, 
when he was, as the apostle has it, in heaviness 
through manifold temptations. " O," says he, " that 
my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity 
laid in the balances together ! for now it would be 
heavier than the sand of the sea ; therefore my words 
are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty 
are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my 
spirit ; the terrors of God do set themselves in array 
against me." "What a tremendous figure ! the arrows 
of the Almighty — poisoned arrows — they drink up 
my spirit. " Have pity upon me, O ye, my friends, 
for the hand of God hath touched me." Referring to 
his former state, and contrasting the darkness in 
which he was now groping with the light that once 
beamed upon his path, he exclaims, " O that I were 
as in months past, as in the days when God preserved 
me, when his candle shined upon my head, and when 
by his light I walked through darkness ; when the 
secret of God was upon my tabernacle, when the 
Almighty was yet with me." Here we have the 
secret of that surprising fortitude which Job evinced 
in the time of his calamity, an answer to the question 
how was he enabled to endure with such submissive 
patience the loss of property, of children, and of 
health. God's candle shone upon his head, the secret 
of the Lord was upon his tabernacle, the Almighty 
was with him. " But now," says he, " I cry unto 
thee, and thou dost not hear me ; I stand up, and 
thou regardest me not." In what vivid colors, too, 
does he paint his anxious groping after that God who 
was once with him by his sustaining grace and cheer- 



348 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

ing presence. " Behold, I go forward, but he is not 
there ; and backward, but I cannot perceive him ; on 
the left hand where he doth work, but I cannot be- 
hold him ; he hideth himself on the right hand, but 
I cannot perceive him ;" that is, in whatever direc- 
tion I turn, forward or backward, to the right or to 
the left, I cannot find my God. With all my efforts 
I bring not back the consolations of his grace. The 
most melancholy part of Job's lamentation, his dark- 
est hour, seems to have been when, reflecting upon 
the insufficiency of his own righteousness, he feels the 
need of an intercessor between himself and a God of 
infinite purity. " If I wash myself with snow water, 
and make my hands never so clean ;" that is, if by 
my own efforts I purify myself, and aim to keep the 
law, and watch and pray, and fancy that now indeed 
I have gained my object and am clean, then shalt 
thou plunge me in the ditch, reveal unto me my innate 
vileness, and my own clothes shall abhor me. For, 
he continues, " He is not a man as I am, that I should 
answer him, and that we should come together in 
judgment ; neither is there any days-man betwixt us 
that might lay his hands upon us both." 

No days-man betwixt us ! O, then, vain indeed 
that thou hast been just and honorable and upright 
in thy dealings ; that thou hast clothed the naked, and 
fed the hungry, and caused the heart of the widow 
and the fatherless to dance with joy. Snow-water 
cannot cleanse thee ; the leprosy lies deep within. 
But it is not true, Job ! There is a days-man, a mer- 
ciful high priest, the Lamb slain from the foundation 
of the world ; his blood can make the foulest clean, 



job. 349 

his blood avails for thee. "With one hand he lays 
hold upon the great I Am, with the other he can 
grasp thee there in thy wretchedness, and present 
thee before the throne spotless, thy robe washed in 
his own blood. How easily, with the light that we 
have, might the terrors of the afflicted one have been 
dissipated like dew before the morning sun ! How 
easily, had the friends who came to condole with 
him but known the glorious truth, how easily might 
they haye applied balm to his wounded spirit ! Ah, 
could he have heard from their lips the declaration of 
the apostle : " There is one God and one Mediator 
between God and men ;" or had some spirit from the 
realms of bliss whispered the question of Isaiah : 
11 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed 
garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his 
apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength ?" 
and bade Job listen to his answer ; " It is I, that 
speak in righteousness, mighty to save :" then, in- 
deed, had the light dawned upon his darkness, and 
the day-star arisen in his heart. But it was not so. 
His friends were more ignorant than himself. In his 
own language, they were indeed physicians of no 
value. Job groped on a while longer in his darkness. 
" O," says he, " O that one might plead for a man 
with God as a man pleadeth with his neighbor. Who 
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one. 
And if a man die, shall he live again ? " Questions, 
these, and intimations, dark and distressing in that 
day ; in ours, so irradiated with light that we can 
scarcely put ourselves in the position of the afflicted 
one who asks them. We know, but, alas ! we too 



350 OLD TESTAMENT ^CHARACTERS. 

generally make little use of our knowledge, that one 
may plead with God even as a man pleadeth with 
his neighbor, that he invites us even thus to plead, to 
come boldly to his throne of grace. We know who 
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean, and the 
question, " If a man die, shall he live again ?" has 
been gloriously answered by Him who hath brought 
life and immortality to light. 

In the midst of these utterances of grief and sad- 
ness, bordering at times upon the very blackness of 
despair, there are occasional glimmerings of a better 
spirit, showing us a mind, shattered, but not wrecked 
by the fury of the storm. He is in deep water, the 
billows are threatening to engulf him, but even now I 
hear from his lips language that has been uttered from 
the heart of many a tempest-tossed pilgrim, cast down, 
but not destroyed, perplexed, but not in despair. 
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him, and all 
the days of my appointed time will I wait till my 
change come." Till his change comes ! Where did 
Job get that word ? He spake but now of death as 
of an endless sleep, he seemed to doubt if man shall 
live again, and now he speaks the language of Christ's 
own blessed gospel as uttered by the very chief of the 
apostles in the meridian light of the Spirit's illumina- 
tion, the " dead shall be raised incorruptible and we 
shall be changed" Till my change come ! 

A little while after he gives utterance to a senti- 
ment that has thrilled the souls of myriads who lived 
and died ere the fullness of time had come, that has 
been a talisman to the afflicted believer in every age, 
his watchword in the darkest hour. Job introduces 



job. 351 

it with great solemnity. " O," says he, " O that my 
words were now written ! O that they were printed 
in a book ; that they were graven with an iron pen 
and lead in the rock forever." And what is the sen- 
timent he would thus have perpetuated ? We have 
heard it a thousand times : " I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
day upon the earth ; and though after my skin worms 
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, 
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall be- 
hold, and not another." 

I am not ignorant of the attempts that have been 
made to destroy the force and the spirituality of this 
language, to refer it all to Job's bodily afflictions and 
to an expectation of worldly prosperity. But this is 
trifling with the sacred record. In this case, as in 
many similar ones, the plain meaning of the words, 
the interpretation that would be put on them by a 
simple-hearted, unlearned reader, is doubtless the 
true one. And Job's request was granted. His 
words have been written in a book. Ay, they have 
been graven with an iron pen upon the everlasting 
rock. Resting upon the simple assurance, I know 
that my Redeemer liveth, the shouts of victory have 
risen above the groans of agony called forth by the 
rack, the gibbet, and the funeral pile. 

But how was it, that even after this glorious de- 
claration Job seems still to be in heaviness, to be 
disposed to murmur and complain ? I answer, even 
yet he has a lesson to learn. That lesson was the 
necessity of utter and entire dependence, notwith- 
standing all that he had done or could do, upon the 



352 OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. 

infinite merits of that Redeemer whose existence was 
now revealed to him. Job had been upright in his 
dealings ; he prided himself upon his integrity. He 
had been charitable to the poor ; he gloried in his be- 
nevolence. He had endeavored to obey the command- 
ments of God ; he wrapped himself in his self-right- 
eousness. Appealing to his Maker, he had ventured 
to say, " Thou knowest that I am not wicked. Let 
me be weighed in an even balance, that God may 
know mine integrity." " O ! " he exclaims, " that 
one would hear me ; behold, my desire is that the 
Almighty would answer me." Even yet he hopes to 
merit something at the hand of God ; to throw into 
the scale his good works, and though he knew that 
his Redeemer lives, he seems not yet to know that he 
only appropriates to himself the merits of that Re- 
deemer who casts away at once and forever every 
other hope, who gives up 

" Every plea beside, 
Lord, I have sinned, but thou hast died." 

" Then God answered Job out of a whirlwind and 
said : "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words 
without knowledge ? Gird up now thy loins like a 
man, and answer thou me." God is then represented, 
in a speech of surpassing majesty, as convincing Job 
of his ignorance and weakness. He reminds him 
also of his omnipotent power, of his glory as seen in 
the creation, and asks, " Who hath prevented me 
that I should repay him ? whatsoever is under the 
whole heaven is mine," that is, Who hath laid me, or 
can lay me, under any obligation ? Do I need my 



job. 353 

creatures ? How hast thou profited the infinite and 
all-sufficient God by aught that thou hast done ? Now 
comes the hour of Job's triumph. He listens, ap- 
palled, abashed, overwhelmed. " I have heard of 
thee," he exclaims, " by the hearing of the ear, but 
now mine eye seeth thee ;" that is, I had some faint 
conceptions of thy character, of thy majesty and 
power, but now the eye of my mind clearly perceives 
thee, and the same light that reveals the purity and 
all-sufficiency of thy nature discloses to me mine own 
vileness and utter helplessness. " Wherefore," he 
continues, " I abhor myself, and repent in dust and 
ashes." But why should Job repent ? and why this 
loathing and self-abhorrence ? In the presence of a 
God of infinite and of unsullied purity, a God who 
cannot look on sin, who chargeth his angels with 
folly, in whose sight the heavens are not clean, the 
dust is the only fitting place even for him who has 
aimed to keep God's perfect law and to walk up- 
rightly before him. He that has any other feelings, 
that depends for a moment upon anything he has 
done or can do, knows little of himself, and little of 
his God. The perfect and upright Job exclaims, " I 
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And 
this, I say, is the hour of Job's triumph. The days of 
his mourning are ended ; the clouds are scattered ; 
his captivity is turned, and the Lord blessed the lat- 
ter end of Job more than the beginning. 

Two or three general remarks will close the sub- 
ject. And first, God's dealings with the children of 
men are frequently unfathomably mysterious. They 

were so to Job, still more so to his friends, and to all 

23 



354 OLD TESTAMENT CHAKACTEKS. 

who, in his own day, were made acquainted with his 
history. Even to us, who are permitted to look down 
upon the man of Uz from the eminence on which we 
dwell, to read his history by the light of successive 
revelations, there is much that is dark and unfathom- 
able. That the enemy should be allowed so severely 
to harass and afflict so good a man ; that he should 
be left so long to grope in darkness ; these things, and 
others that might be mentioned, are full of mystery. 
Equally clear is the lesson taught by Job's history, 
that God's ways, though mysterious, are right. Pur- 
poses of his infinite wisdom were subserved by the 
afflictions of his servant. Job himself was taught 
more of God and more of himself than he could have 
learned in any other way. The knowledge he ob- 
tained, though purchased in the furnace of affliction, 
was cheaply purchased, was worth more than it cost. 
So he reckoned, when he came forth like gold, when 
his afflictions were ended, and the remembrance 
thereof was like a dream when one awaketh. Re- 
joicing in the clear light of a noon-day sun, what 
matters it that at early dawn it was enveloped in 
clouds ! Or, the haven gained, the port entered, does 
not even the remembrance of the raging wind and 
the roaring sea enhance the happiness of home, and 
call for louder paeans of exulting gratitude % But 
not for himself alone did Job live, and suffer, and 
triumph. To his cotemporaries in that early age, 
and to succeeding generations, as they read or heard 
his story, were revealed by it great and fundamental 
truths, of which, as we have seen, the wisest were 
previously profoundly ignorant. Job's history taught 



job. 355 

them that prosperity in this life is no certain evidence 
of the favor of God ; that adversity and affliction 
here are no sign of his disapprobation. It showed 
them that man in his highest and holiest efforts merits 
nothing at the hand of God, and that all he is or 
hopes to be is by his sovereign grace. It afforded a 
practical demonstration of the evangelical truth that 
in this world God's children may expect tribulation, 
and taught them that the tempter's power is bounded 
by limits assigned by infinite wisdom and infinite 
love. It threw light, too — compared with what we 
have, indeed, mere twilight, but a sure precursor of 
the dawn and the noon-day — upon the grand central 
truth of all revelation, there is a days-man between 
worms of earth and the King of glory. And, finally, 
it taught them, and if it teach us, not in vain have 
we perused this outline of his history, that man's 
place is in the dust before God ; that after all that 
we have done our only hope of deliverance and sal- 
vation is in utter self-abhorrence, in repentance as in 
dust and ashes. 



THE END. 



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